The victims may be dead, but NBC’s “Dateline” is going live.
NBC News announced Tuesday that the cast of its popular long-running true crime newsmagazine will gather onstage Sept. 28 at the Pinnacle, a new music venue in Nashville.
Ticket-holding fans will see correspondents Josh Mankiewicz, Blayne Alexander, Keith Morrison, Dennis Murphy, Andrea Canning and anchor Lester Holt in panel discussions and Q&A sessions. There will also be criminal justice experts on hand for onstage demonstrations.
The Nashville session — which will also commemorate the 3,000th episode of the program first launched in 1992 — will be a test run, according to Liz Cole, senior executive producer for “Dateline.” A strong turnout could lead to more dates and become additional source of revenue for the program. (NBC News has not revealed prices for tickets, which go on sale Aug. 5.)
“We realized that the anniversary was coming up, and it’s such a big number we wanted to do something special to mark the occasion,” Cole said in an interview. “This seemed like a great way to experiment with the format and go out and meet with our ‘Dateline’ community in real life.”
The television news audiences are shrinking as viewers move from traditional appointment viewing to on-demand streaming. But on-air personalities, whether they are covering politics or true crime, have devoted fans willing to pay to see them up close.
The revenue news shows can generate from live events is probably limited as journalists and anchors need the time to report stories or prepare a nightly program, making it challenging to book lengthy tours. (The “Dateline” correspondents are frequently on the road for their stories.)
“It’s quite an accomplishment getting everyone in one place at one time,” Mankiewicz said in a recent interview. “That usually only happens here when we’re taking the team picture or we’re kicking off the new season.”
Networks with well-known franchises are looking for ways to expand their reach beyond the viewers tuning in each day. Every little bit helps. “Dateline” has been doing it with podcasts — one of which will carry an audio version of the Nashville show — which have attracted younger viewers who don’t watch on TV as often. Podcast versions of “Dateline” TV episodes regularly populate the Apple rankings.
But live events can help create a deeper connection with viewers, as other outlets have discovered.
MSNBC, which will soon be leaving the NBC News family to be a part of the Comcast spin-off company Versant, sold out a 4,000-seat venue in Brooklyn last year for its first “MSNBC Live” gathering.
“MSNBC Live 25” will return in October with a top ticket price of $1,086.05 for an evening session at the Manhattan Center’s Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. The price includes an orchestra seat and a VIP dinner event with hosts Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki and Stephanie Ruhle in conversation with special guests.
Conservative-leaning Fox News has tapped into its loyal audience annually with its Patriot Awards show that features Sean Hannity and other anchors honoring citizens who “dedicate themselves to their communities with inspirational acts of courage and patriotism.”
A Fox News representative said the event, which is streamed on the network’s Fox Nation site, has sold out every year since its inception in 2019. In the fall last year, the program honored President Trump at the 2,242-seat Tilles Center in Long Island, N.Y., where the top ticket price was $669.
In March, NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo joined ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith and former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly for an event billed as “Three Americans Live.” The trio regularly debate on Cuomo’s prime-time program for the Nexstar-owned news channel. No further dates have been booked since their one appearance in Westbury, N.Y.
Cole has seen evidence that the “Dateline” crew can draw a crowd on their own. The correspondents are a top attraction when they appear at CrimeCon, an annual gathering of true crime fanatics.
Many of those fans drive hours from around the country for the weekend event, which will be held in Denver later this year. The $1,800 Platinum VIP level tickets are sold out. (The dress code is “respectful casual” to discourage cosplaying.)
“I love the viewers because they always have questions and observations that I was not expecting, and I see that every year at CrimeCon,” Mankiewicz said. “I also experience it regularly at America’s airports, and I’m expecting that in Nashville.”
“Welcome to Kihnu. We are not a matriarchy,” says Mare Mätas as she meets me off the ferry. I’ve stepped on to the wild and windswept Kihnu island, which floats in the Gulf of Riga off Estonia’s western coast like a castaway from another time. Just four miles (7km) long and two miles wide, this Baltic outpost is a world unto itself that has long been shielded from the full impact of modernity, a place where motorbikes share the road with horse-drawn carts, and women in bright striped skirts still sing ancient sea songs. But Kihnu is no museum – it’s a living, breathing culture all of its own, proudly cared for by its 700 or so residents.
Mare, a traditional culture specialist and local guide, promptly ushers me into the open back of her truck and takes me on a whistlestop tour of the island, giving me a history quiz as we stop at the museum, the lighthouse, the cemetery and the school.
The men of Kihnu would once have spent many months away at sea, sailing or hunting seals. Out of necessity, the women of the island became the heads of the family as well as the keepers of the island’s cultural heritage. This led to Kihnu being nicknamed “the island of women”, and the BBC even proclaimed it “Europe’s last surviving matriarchy”. But Mare is very clear: “If you must use a word, you could say that our culture is matrifocal. But I prefer to say that on Kihnu we are simply equal. Women have status in the community, and older women have a higher status – they are seen as wise elders. Women work as the guardians of our culture, and we look after the circle of life on the island – we have the children, we tend the land, we care for the dead.”
The women of Kihnu have been lighthouse keepers, tractor drivers and even stand-in priests. Today, they play ancient melodies on violin and accordion, teach their daughters traditional dances and sing Kihnu’s eerily beautiful runic songs, believed to be of pre-Christian origin. Most eyecatchingly, they wear traditional dress – bright red woollen skirts, embroidered blouses and patterned headscarves. These aren’t just garments donned for weddings or festivals – this is the only place in Estonia where folk dress is still donned daily.
When the men were at sea, the women became the lighthouse keepers. Photograph: Matjaz Corel/Alamy
Mare is wearing a red striped kört skirt and woollen jacket. Her daughters, in their teens and 20s, pair their traditional skirts with slogan T-shirts. The skirts are woven every winter and each tells the story of the wearer. Young women usually wear red – they are supposedly in the “fairytale” era of their lives. If a woman is in mourning, she will don a black skirt. Over the months, her skirts will include more red and purple stripes until she’s dressed in joyful red again. A married woman wears an apron over her skirt, and new fashions and patterns still influence designs today. “When paisley was brought to the island from India, we began using it for our headscarves,” explains Mare. “And in the 1960s, when miniskirts were the rage, we wore mini körts!”
I spot women of all ages dressed in bright flashes of red as I cycle about the island’s dirt roads on a sit-up-and-beg-bike. Kihnu is a patchwork of wildflower meadows and pine groves, edged by rocky coastline and dotted with wooden homes painted in primary yellows and reds. Outside one homestead I meet Jaak Visnap. An artist from Tallinn, he has run naive art camps here every summer for 20 years. Historically, many of the island’s sailors were also naive painters (artists who typically have no formal training and exhibit a simplicity in their work), and when I meet Jaak, he and a group of painting students from Kihnu and the mainland are busy working on richly coloured paintings for an exhibition in the island’s museum.
Local guide Mare Mätas in traditional dress. Photograph: Sian Lewis
Estonians often label themselves as cold and standoffish, but the painters welcome me warmly and offer me wine. The sun comes out and transforms the island – moody grey skies swept away by golden light – so I join them for a swim in the warm, shallow sea. As we bob on our backs in the evening glow, Viola from Tallinn tells me a joke: “It’s raining, and a foreigner asks an Estonian man: ‘Don’t you have summer in this country?’ ‘Of course,’ he replies. ‘But sadly I was at work that day.’”
Before I leave the painters, I ask Jaak how the island has changed since his first summer here. “This used to be the fishing island,” he says. “Now, it’s the tourist island.” But visitors don’t seem to have transformed Kihnu just yet. Locals may drive modern cars and trucks, but I also pass Soviet-era motorbikes with side cars. There are a few shops and cafes, but they sell smoked dried fish and seal meat as well as coffee and cakes.
Outside her craft shop, I meet Elly Karjam, who knits the traditional troi sweaters worn by Kihnu’s men, beautifully patterned in blue and white wool woven into protective symbols. “I can knit hundreds of jumpers every winter, and each takes me 200 hours,” she says, her fingers clicking in a blur as she works on a new masterpiece for the local priest.
Kihnu island is four miles long and two miles wide. Photograph: Wirestock/Alamy
Mare tells me that the island only wants to attract tourists interested in culture and craftsmanship, and that the islanders are musing over whether campervans should be banned. But tourism also allows the next generation to remain on the island, rather than leave for the mainland in search of work. And for now, most visitors seem to embrace slow travel, staying with local people in guest houses and B&Bs, and visiting to join midsummer dances and violin festivals, to learn to paint or knit, or just to find pastoral peace.
The “island of women” is a misnomer. Instead, Kihnu feels like an old-fashioned yet balanced place that moves to the beat of its own drum (or perhaps, the hum of its own accordion). In winter, cloaked in snow, it must be a tough place to live. But in summer, this slow-paced island is a joy to explore. As I leave, the rain that makes it so lush and green returns. The ferry has barely left the harbour before Kihnu is swallowed in the grey sea, a place of legend once again.
Kihnu is reached by a one-hour ferry crossing (foot passengers €4 one way, cars €16 one way) from Munalaid harbour, which is an hour’sbus journey from the coastal town of Pärnu. See visitkihnu.ee.Mare Mätas offers guided tours of Kihnu as well as guesthouse accommodation on her farm, about £40 a person a night, kihnumare.ee. Elly Karjam offers comfy bedrooms and a traditional sauna on her homestead, where she also sells her knitting and homemade crafts, visitestonia.com/en/elly-bed-breakfast-in-kihnu. Pitch a tent at Kihnu Vald campsite, kihnurand.ee
Few initiatives of the Trump administration more seriously undermine our understanding of the nation’s past than Executive Order 14023 from March 27, which promises “to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments.”
The order directs the Interior secretary to cleanse all National Park Service sites of any signage that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” and instead “emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” The Park Service staff was also instructed to purge gift shops of books that could be construed as critical of any American. In a similar vein, the Smithsonian Institution was ordered to remove “improper ideology” from its properties to assure they reflected “American greatness.”
Unwilling to depend on park personnel to enforce the patriotism mandate, the Trump administration is enlisting park visitors to report potentially offending displays and ranger talks that present an insufficiently sanitized account of American history. On June 9, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron instructed regional directors to “post signage that will encourage public feedback via QR code and other methods that are viable” concerning anything they encounter at a park site that they believe denigrates the nation’s history. (It is worth noting that when queried about the QR code directive, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed to know nothing of the mandate, although he signed it on May 20.) How will the Trump administration respond if a visitor uses one of the mandatory QR codes to file a complaint?
And that is just the beginning. The Trump administration has also made clear it would like to eliminate entire sites that are not “National Parks, in the traditionally understood sense.” That means targeting those features that lack the grandeur of Yosemite and the Grand Tetons: smaller parks, sites and memorials, many of which honor women and minorities. Generally lacking soaring redwoods or massive gorges, these sites — many in urban areas where President Trump’s revisionist history has not caught on — would seem to describe places in California such as César Chavez National Monument outside Bakersfield, Manzanar National Historic Site and Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.
Trump and his ahistorical myrmidons — he just mused that the Civil War ended in 1869 — regularly display an abysmal ignorance of basic American history. In their view, such federal (and presumably state) sites should present only a simplistic view of our complex 249-year history, one that virtually ignores the contributions and struggles of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Even before we see how many “tips” the Park Service’s invitation elicits from visitors eager to rat on rangers, the wording of the executive order itself is chilling. Any signage or lecture that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” — and who is to say what constitutes disparagement? — must be replaced with rhetoric that emphasizes “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.” Needless to say, the many sites that tell the stories of civil rights and anti-slavery struggles, the Civil War, the role of immigrants, the battles for labor rights and the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people are going to have a challenging time ensuring they in no way offend those willing to acknowledge only uninterrupted “greatness” of the American story. Sometimes our greatness has been manifested by our progress toward a more perfect union — and that story cannot be told without mentioning imperfections.
One need not have a PhD in history to appreciate the dire threat presented by these efforts to replace historical scholarship with uncritical flag-waving. Historians have an obligation to challenge myth, to uncover obscured stories, to give voice to those who were unable to fully participate in earlier eras of the American story because of their race, ethnicity, gender or viewpoints. That is why our government has protected sites including Ellis Island (which President Lyndon B. Johnson added to Statue of Liberty National Monument), Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and Stonewall National Monument (both recognized by President Obama). Trump’s Orwellian orders seek to undo a half-century of scholarship that revealed a far more complex and nuanced history than the simplified versions taught to generations of schoolchildren.
Fortunately, professional historians have not been cowed like many university leaders, law firms and others who have shamefully capitulated to Trump’s assault on free speech and intellectual integrity. A March statement from more than 40 historical societies condemned recent efforts to “purge words, phrases, and content that some officials deem suspect on ideological grounds [and] to distort, manipulate, and erase significant parts of the historical record.”
The national parks consistently rate as one of the most popular features of American government. Neither their rangers nor their exhibits should be intimidated into parroting a sanitized and distorted version of the nation’s past. As the historians declared, “We can neither deny what happened nor invent things that did not happen.” Americans should use those QR codes to send a clear message rejecting efforts to manipulate our history to suit an extremist ideological and political agenda.
John Lawrence is a visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Center and a former staff director of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Kidnapped and held captive in a secret underground bunker by a notorious serial killer.
In the late 1990s, the quiet of a small Russian town was shattered when Irina Ganyushkina stumbled into a police station—an escapee from a living nightmare.
Irina revealed to authorities that she was one of five women kidnapped and held captive in a secret underground bunker by a notorious serial killer: Aleksandr Komin, chillingly nicknamed ‘the maniac.’
For Irina and the other survivors, freedom was only the beginning. In a country where women’s stories of violence are too often dismissed, they now faced a new challenge: rebuilding their lives after unimaginable horror.
In this episode: -Dariana Gryaznova, human rights lawyer
Jacqui Heinrich, senior White House correspondent for Fox News, just vetted the story of her own engagement to U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick on Tuesday. The verdict? It ain’t fake news.
The Pennsylvania Republican asked Heinrich for her hand in marriage in a lavender field in Provence, France, according to People. Promoting that story, the journalist wrote on X, “Fact check: true.” Then she tacked on a couple of appropriately lovey emojis.
“The cooking was the dealmaker. Congrats Jacqui!” Fox News contributor Joe Concha said in comments. Chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst chimed in with, “Love this news,” while Jessica Tarlov, who speaks for Democrats on “The Five,” wrote, “Ahhhhhh congratulations!!!”
Fitzpatrick popped the question on June 29, People reported, before he had to hustle back to vote on the just-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. His inspiration came from something Heinrich told the Boston Globe last summer, ahead of the 2024 election: “I’ve always dreamed of eating my way through the French Riviera and Provence, with sun-drenched days at the lavender fields punctuated by crisp wines and salty butter.”
So Fitzpatrick, 51, booked a summer trip to France as a birthday gift for Heinrich, who turns 37 in November. But the journalist was concerned, she told the celebrity outlet, that her beau would have to cut the trip short to vote against Trump’s bill, which the president signed into law on July 4. Did Fitzpatrick want to postpone the trip, she wondered?
“He was like, ‘We are going. We’re going to the lavender fields. All I want is to see the lavender fields at sunrise,’” she told People. “All the time I’ve known this man, he has never been desperate to see a field of flowers at dawn. So I had a feeling that [a proposal] was the goal.”
What was supposed to be a 10-day trip was whittled down to only a couple of days.
After arriving in Nice, France, they drove two hours in darkness to catch the sunrise in the town of Valensole, known for its lavender and truffles. The town is built into a hill overlooking a small river valley, and a lavender festival is held there annually on the third Sunday in July. But the OBBBA waited for no sweet-smelling shrub, so attending the festival was definitely out.
Fitzpatrick had an agenda. He stopped at one particular lavender field and suggested Heinrich go for a stroll while he took some photos of her, she told People. As she took in the view, a photographer and a drone appeared, she said, and Fitzpatrick was asking her to marry him and presenting a ring he had procured from her family’s longtime jeweler.
The photos, as seen on the outlet’s website, are lovely. Heinrich, who has been dating Fitzpatrick since the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors, said yes.
“I love his brain,” Heinrich told People of her fiance, a five-term congressman who was previously an FBI special agent and federal prosecutor. Fitzpatrick was also embedded with U.S. Special Forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to his biography.
“I love the way he approaches problem-solving and solving complex issues. He’s strong and a man of faith, who brings me closer to God.,” Heinrich said. “He’s sweet and gentle and kind — all of the easy qualities in a person that just make him a joy to be around and life brighter.”
There’s also a handy little bonus in this pairing, as revealed on the congressman’s website: Should Heinrich find herself in need of an attorney, a certified public accountant or an emergency medical technician, she’s definitely covered, because Fitzpatrick is licensed as all three.
As temptations rise in Casa Amor the ‘sweetest’ Islander shocks everyone by revealing a side no one saw coming, leaving fans stunned and hearts breaking back in the main villa
There’s set to be heartbreak for one Love Island girl(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
There’s set to be heartbreak for one Love Island girl as her man finally shows his true colours in Casa Amor. The boys all descended on the iconic villa in tonight’s episode, and it wasn’t long before they had all seemingly forgot about the connections that they had spent weeks making.
Viewers watched in sheer disbelief as the sweetest boy in the villa, Tommy, proved that his feelings for Emily were not as strong as he had made out as his tune quickly changed the minute the six new girls came on the scene.
Tommy didn’t hold back with the new arrivals as he told them: “There’s definitely a few of you that tickle my fancy.” Love Island fans couldn’t quite believe their ears at Tommy’s cheeky admission given that he had been telling Emily for weeks how much he liked her and how excited he was for her to meet his family on the outside.
The islander even went as far to say that he knows his mum would ‘love’ Emily and would approve of her. However, he appeared to have forgotten his romantic confessions within in minutes of being in Casa Amor.
Tommy has shocked viewers with his admission(Image: ITV)
Taking to X to share their thoughts on Tommy, Love Island viewers didn’t hold back. One fumed: “Tommy the traitor!!! I don’t like Emily in the slightest but this man has single handedly just proved that every single boy is the same whenever a new women enters the chat.”
Another echoed: “VERY surprised by Tommy tonight! Can’t lie he’s gone down in my books! What a snake.” Someone else complained: “Tommy thinks he’s all that and plays the nice guy card but his true colours are actually out.”
While someone else said: “Tommy and Emily were soooooo boring together anyways!! He needs someone with a bit of spice and edge to them and Emily most certainly doesn’t have that. Hope he shacks up with one of these girls just to sicken her lol.”
Emily could be set for heartbreak after Casa Amor(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Elsewhere, it became clear within minutes that tensions were high in Casa Amor and that the boys were not wasting any time. On their first night, Dejon kicked things off with a flirty round of Truth or Dare to break the ice. Things quickly heated up fast as Ben dived in with a bold three-way kiss, including Harry’s ex, Emma.
Harry then soon came face to face with his ex girlfriend Emma, who greeted him with a cheeky: “Surprise!” He later confirmed the ‘E’ tattoo on his wrist is, indeed, for her.
As the Islanders chatted about their types, Yaz said she needs emotional depth in a partner. Emma didn’t miss a beat, leaning toward Harry and saying: “Well that’s you out.”
After the shock of her entrance, Harry and his ex Emma finally caught up, and he said: “I don’t need you to come and tell me off.” But Emma has no plans to stay quiet as she called him out on his bad behaviour with Helena.
“It’s disgraceful though… like, how are you still doing the same thing?” she said. “The way you’ve been moving with Helena honestly… you two deserve each other… two snakes.”
Netflix has added a new true crime series to its collection that has been described as ‘essential viewing’ and ‘a shocking documentary that everyone’s got to see’
Netflix fans have been impressed by a new true crime documentary branded as ‘essential viewing’ (stock photo)(Image: gorodenkoff via Getty Images)
Netflix has released a gripping new true crime documentary, hailed as ‘essential viewing’ and available for a limited time only. The platform, renowned for its compelling documentaries, is kicking off the month with fresh additions to its library, including a series that’s bound to have viewers glued to their screens.
The four-part series, Attack on London: Hunting the 7/7 Bombers, revisits the harrowing terror attacks on London’s transport system two decades ago, featuring first-hand accounts and previously unseen footage. It delves into the tragic events of July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers launched an attack on the capital’s transport network, resulting in the deaths of 52 people and injuries to more than 770 others.
The British Transport Police (BTP) revealed at the time that three explosions occurred on the London Underground around 8.50am near Aldgate, Edgware Road, and Russell Square stations.
A fourth bomb detonated at 9.47am aboard a bus rerouted through Tavistock Square, close to the BTP’s headquarters at the time.
Luke Eccleston, a movie and TV content creator, took to TikTok to recommend Attack on London: Hunting the 7/7 Bombers to his followers.
He urged: “Stop whatever you’re doing because Netflix have just dropped a brand new four-part limited series, and trust me when I say that this is an essential viewing. It’s a shocking documentary that everyone’s got to see.”
Luke shared insights into the intense Netflix documentary, detailing the harrowing terror attacks and subsequent investigation, featuring interviews with survivors and the prime minister at the time, Tony Blair.
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The TV fan praised the streaming giant’s work, saying: “Now, Netflix have done such a good job with this documentary, as it’s such a great and serious documentary where it [doesn’t just] delve into the actual original attacks, but [an incident] two weeks later [when] an innocent man was shot.
“It’s genuinely heartbreaking to see what happened and how it genuinely shocked London so please make sure you get this on your watch list.”
The tragic case of Jean Charles de Menezes – the 27-year-old misidentified as a terrorist involved in a failed attack later that month and fatally shot by police at Stockwell Underground station – is also covered in the documentary.
The perpetrators of the 7/7 bombings were eventually identified as Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, and Germaine Lindsay.
Luke’s TikTok followers echoed his recommendation, with comments pouring in about the documentary.
One viewer commented: “Great doc, binged it all already.” Another recommended it as a “must watch Netflix series.”
A third shared: “Watched the first two parts and great watch so far. Awful seeing what happened.”
Coronation Street’s Maria Connor will be left devastated to learn her husband Gary Windass has been attacked, and now actress Samia Longchambon has teased who did it
21:00, 29 Jun 2025Updated 21:59, 29 Jun 2025
There could be a revenge twist looming on Coronation Street as the identity of who attacked Gary Windass is set to come to light(Image: ITV)
There could be a revenge twist looming on Coronation Street as the identity of who attacked Gary Windass is set to come to light.
Maria Connor will be left concerned over her husband’s disappearance in upcoming scenes when she realises something bad has happened. What she doesn’t know though is Gary is in a coma in hospital after being attacked.
While we know Nina Lucas and Summer Spellman are linked to the crime, we have no clue yet as to who committed the assault. That said, spoilers have confirmed Gary’s attacker is covering their tracks, even pretending to be his next of kin as he remains in a coma.
The mystery person has given the hospital a fake identity for Gary too, so Maria and his loved ones have not been informed. Ahead of their identity being revealed to viewers, Maria actress Samia Longchambon has teased what’s really happened to the character.
Ahead of Maria hunting for her missing husband and then eventually finding out he’s been in hospital, the actress teased who could be behind it. She shared: “Maria’s mind is spiralling now but she doesn’t stop for a second to think who actually attacked him and put him in a coma.
Coronation Street’s Maria Connor will be left devastated to learn her husband Gary Windass has been attacked(Image: ITV)
“She’s aware Gary has got a lot of enemies from over the years who could have potentially wanted to take revenge on him.” So could Gary’s attack be a mystery revenge plot, and is it someone from his past?
Maria will turn to detective Kit Green in upcoming episodes, sure something is terribly wrong. Determined to find him, Samia teased Maria could take matters into her own hands to figure out what has happened.
After an unknown coma patient is found, Maria will be told by Kit that it isn’t Gary. On what’s ahead, Samia spilled: “I think she feels comfort that Kit has assured her that he’ll do everything he can to find Gary, but that absolutely wouldn’t stop Maria from doing everything she can to find him.”
The news about the coma patient not being Gary leaves Maria with mixed emotions as she fears her husband could be dead. Samia explained: “When Maria learns that Gary isn’t the coma patient, she is with Kit and confides in him that she knows it’s awful but she actually wishes it was him just so she knew where he was.
Maria Connor will be left concerned over her husband’s disappearance(Image: ITV)
“It’s bittersweet for Maria because she’s of course glad Gary isn’t in a coma, although little does she know he actually is, but at the same time she’s worried even more now because her fear is he could be in a worse condition or even dead.” The disappearance came after Maria and Gary rowed over Lou, while Maria is yet to discover how Lou tried to kiss him before blackmailing him before he left to visit his mother Anna Windass.
But amid her initial thoughts on Gary staying away because of their drama, something leads to Maria panicking. Samia said: “It was definitely when Gary misses Liam’s birthday that Maria starts getting really panicked and nervous.
“She was obviously worried before where he was because he had been gone a long time and was ignoring her messages and phone calls and thought they would have sorted it out long before that. But as soon as he misses Liam’s birthday she absolutely has a gut feeling that something isn’t right and thinks something awful might have happened to him.”
She went on: “She’s really upset that he’s gone but it’s not until he’s been gone too long that she realises something is really wrong and is even more worried. Her emotions turn from being upset about the fact that they’ve fallen out to being worried about his safety.”
What does George’s story tell us about the US justice system and the ways it continues to fail African-Americans?
In 1944, amid the harsh glare of Jim Crow, 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. was strapped into South Carolina’s electric chair after a trial that lasted just a single day. With no physical evidence, no defense witnesses, and an all-white jury that deliberated for ten minutes, he was convicted of murdering two white girls. Nearly seven decades later, a judge threw out the verdict.
In this episode: – Matthew Burgess, Criminal Defence Attorney – Dr Melanie Holmes, Assistant Professor of African American Studies
Helena ended things with Harry after she found out he had kissed Yasmin three times in the Hideaway behind her back, but after she pulled him aside for a difficult discussion viewers think they know how she really feels about her former flame
21:29, 23 Jun 2025Updated 21:30, 23 Jun 2025
Love Island fans think they have figured out Helena’s true feelings towards Harry after his betrayal with Yasmin(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Tensions have escalated in the Love Island villa with Helena Ford set to confront Harry Cooksley for what she wants to be the final time tonight, and fans think they have worked out her true feelings towards him.
In tonight’s (23 June) dramatic episode of the ITV reality show, the Islanders faced another recoupling ceremony where the girls got to choose who they wanted to couple up with this time. After Helena decided to move on with somebody else, she took Harry aside for a difficult chat where she let him know exactly where she stands after his sneaking around in the Hideaway.
She told him she doesn’t think they can be friends tonight (Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
She told him: “I know we said yesterday we’d be friends but I can’t be your mate in here, you’ve not even apologised for anything that you’ve done.”
Harry attempted to explain his actions, saying: “I thought it was too good, I’ve done it in the past where I self-sabotage because I think it’s too good to be true. I’m 30 years old I get it, I’m not making excuses, but all I’ve ever seen is things with an expiry date.”
But Helena stood strong, replying: “It’s done now, you can’t go back on it. I can’t really be around you right now.” While she appeared quite upset by how Harry had treated her, and seemed on the verge of tears as she walked away from their conversation, fans thought this exchange proved that she doesn’t actually care about him and is only jealous that he has moved on to someone new.
One fan took to X, saying: “I see right through Helena and her jealousy for Shakira, you only want Harry now cause he’s moved onto Shakira.” Another agreed: “Helena doesn’t even like Harry. Her ego just can’t handle that he chose Shakira over her.”
A third chimed in, adding: “I don’t want to hear Helena slag Shakira off today for being with Harry. I hope she keeps her anger directed at Harry.”
The conversation with Helena left Harry visibly emotional, and Dejon later tried to comfort him, saying: “I’m gonna pray tonight and hope there’s a miracle you two can get back together.”
But a despondent Harry replied: “There ain’t no me and Helena. I’ve got to forget about it for now.” Helena’s announcement that she is no longer willing to even be around Harry comes after she was shocked by the discovery that Harry snuck off to the Hideaway with Yasmin, where they shared three kisses.
He initially denied the extent of what happened, which led to him being berated by one of the girls in the villa. After it came out that Harry had been dishonest about how many times he locked lips with Yasmin, Megan put him on blast, shouting: “You owe it to Helena to be f****** honest, you p****… Grow a pair of b******* mate, honestly, grow the f*** up.”
Harry’s rollercoaster experience in the Love Island villa has even been criticised by his own mum, who joked that she has “disowned him” multiple times while watching the ITV dating show during her appearance on Aftersun.
When show host Maya Jama asked her how she felt watching his behaviour live on telly, she groaned: “I’ve disowned him. On more than one occasion. Harry who? Harry who? Oh my God, it just rolls off his tongue, I don’t know. How can you forget the camera’s on you?”
Love Island’s Helena has been slammed online by fans as ‘insecure’ as they ‘work out’ her real game plan and say her ‘main personality trait’ is putting ‘other girls down’
Jessica Clarke Digital Reporter
22:57, 22 Jun 2025Updated 22:57, 22 Jun 2025
Love Island’s Helena slammed by fans
Love Island’s Helena has been slammed by fans after the latest instalment of the reality show, as fans claim they have worked out her game plan and said her ‘main personality trait’ is putting ‘other girls down’, following a chat with the latest Bombshell, Harrison.
Helena, 29, was getting to know Harry, 30, however, their relationship came tumbling down after he kissed Yasmin three times in the hideaway and then lied about it. The blonde beauty is now opening herself up to Harrison, but fans aren’t pleased with their conversation.
Helena and Harrison were seen having a cosy chat in the pool together when Helena brought up his other interest, American girl Toni, 24. Helena said Toni was “marking her territory” with Harrison and said she feels like Toni doesn’t like it when she talks to Harrison.
Love Island’s Helena has been slammed by fans after the latest instalment of the reality show, as fans claim they have worked out her game plan(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Fans rushed to express their opinions on X, as one person wrote: “Helena’s main personality trait is putting other girls down. And she has the audacity to call THEM boring”, while another added: “Helena’s chat is literally just talking down other girls”.
A third added: “I’m seeing a very nasty pattern with Helena…..”, while another said: “Can we get a compilation of Helena talking shit about the girls behind their backs on movie night please”.
Helena, 29, was getting to know Harry, 30, however, their relationship came tumbling down after he kissed Yasmin three times(Image: ITV/Love Island)
Helena’s flirty conversation was followed by another game in the villa, which is proving to be very dramatic this year. The islanders were tasked with a game of spin the bottle, which saw chaos erupt in the villa.
The Islanders were faced with telling truths and dares. Conor, who is currently getting to know Emily, got a dare to put the person he thinks is best in bed in his “most favourite sex position”, and he chose Megan.
Helena’s flirty conversation followed another game in the villa, which is proving to be very dramatic this year(Image: ITV/Love Island)
Conor got her to lie on her tummy on the floor and declared his favourite position to be “speed bumps”, before he hovered above her and said: “Pump”. Megan’s partner Tommy shook his head disapproving of the actions.
Emily then said: “If he carries on, he’ll never find out how I am in bed.”
Elsewhere in the episode, fans showed real concern for Alima as they pointed out her lack of airtime and questioned if she had gone missing.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one fan penned: “is alima still in that villa??#LoveIsland,” as another questioned: “WHERE IS ALIMA ?? #LoveIsland“
By Peter Brown Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: 48 pages, $20 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
There are rare moments in the culture when a children’s book resonates with everyone. Parents who buy the book for their kids find themselves moved by a story that is not intended for them but somehow speaks to them. Peter Brown’s “The Wild Robot” is one such book.
A tender-hearted fable about a robot who washes ashore on a remote island and goes native, the 2016 middle-grade novel from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has spawned two sequels and last year’s hit (and Oscar-nominated) adaptation from DreamWorks Animation, with book sales for the series topping 6.5 million worldwide. Brown has now created a picture book titled “The Wild Robot on the Island,” a gateway for those still too young to read the original work.
“This new book gave me a chance to create these big, colorful, detailed illustrations, while still maintaining the emotional tone of the novel,” says Brown, who is Zooming from the Maine home he shares with his wife and young son. “I’ve added some little moments that aren’t in the novel to give younger readers an introduction and when they’re ready, they can turn to the novel.”
“The Wild Robot on the Island” picture book is geared for a younger audience than Brown’s earlier children’s novels featuring Roz the robot and friends.
(Peter Brown / Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
The new book’s mostly-pictures-with-some-words approach is a return to Brown’s earlier work when he was creating charming fables for toddlers about our sometimes fraught, sometimes empathetic attitude toward nature. In 2009’s “The Curious Garden,” a boy encounters a patch of wildflowers and grass sprouting from an abandoned railway and decides to cultivate it into a garden, while 2013’s “Mr. Tiger Goes Wild” finds the title character longing to escape from the conventions of a world where animals no longer run free. This push and pull between wilderness and civilized life, or wildness versus timidity, has preoccupied Brown for the duration of his career, and it is what brought Brown to his robot.
“I was thinking about nature in unlikely places, and the relationships between natural and unnatural things,” says Brown, a New Jersey native who studied at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. “And that led to the idea of a robot in a tree.” Brown drew a single picture of a robot standing on the branch of a giant pine tree, then put it aside while he produced other work. But the image wouldn’t let him go: “Every couple of months, I would think about that robot.”
Brown began researching robots and robotics, and slowly the story gestated in his mind. “Themes began to emerge,” says Brown. “Mainly, the idea of this robot becoming almost more wild and natural than a person could be. That was so fascinating to me that I wanted to let this thing breathe and see where it took me.”
Brown knew the involved narrative he had imagined wouldn’t work in picture book form; he needed to write his story as a novel, which would be new territory for him. “When I pitched the idea to my editor, she basically said, ‘Pump your brakes,’ ” says Brown. “If I was going to write, I had to include illustrations as well. The publisher thought it was a bit of a risk. They wanted pictures in order to sell it, because of what I had done in the past.”
(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Brown locked himself away out in the wilds of Maine, in a cabin with no Wi-Fi, and got down to it. “I was nervous, and my editor wasn’t sure, either,” says Brown, who cites Kurt Vonnegut as a literary influence. “I realized there was no other option but for me to do it. And once I got into it, I had a blast.”
Like all great fables, Brown’s story is deceptively simple. A cargo ship full of robots goes down in the middle of the ocean. Some of these robots, still packed in their boxes, wash ashore on a remote island. A family of otters opens one such box, which turns out to be Roz, Brown’s wild robot. As Roz explores this strange new world, she encounters angry bears, a loquacious squirrel and industrious beavers, who regard her as a malevolent force. But the robot’s confusion, and the animal’s hostility, soon dissolve into a mutual understanding. Roz is the reader’s proxy, an innocent who acclimates to the complex rhythms of the natural world. Eventually she is subsumed into this alien universe, a creature of nature who allows birds to roost on her chromium shoulder.
“Roz has been programmed to learn, but her creators, the men who built her, don’t expect her to learn in this particular way,” says Brown. “And so she uses that learning ability to mimic the animals’ behavior and learns how to communicate with them. Roz is the embodiment of the value of learning, and part of that is adapting, changing, growing.”
The story isn’t always a rosy fairy tale. There are predators on the island; animals are eaten for sustenance. Real life, in short, rears its ugly head. “It gets tricky. Life is complicated, right?”, says Brown. “But thanks to Roz’s influence, all the animals discover how they are all a part of this interconnected community.”
Roz adopts an abandoned gosling that she names Brightbill, and the man-made machine is now a mother, flooded with compassion for her young charge. Their relationship is the emotional core of Brown’s series. At a time when the world is grappling with the increasing presence of robotic technology in everyday life, Brown offers an alternative view: What if we can create robots that are capable of benevolence and empathy? Roz reminds us of our own humanity, our capacity to love and feel deeply. This is why “The Wild Robot” isn’t just a kid’s book. It is in fact one of the most insightful novels about our present techno-anxious moment, camouflaged as a children’s book.
The author kept his underlying fable intact in the new “Wild Robot” picture book.
(Peter Brown / Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
“Technology is a double-edged sword,” says Brown. “There’s obviously a lot of good that is happening, and will continue to happen, but in the wrong hands it can be dangerous.” He mentions Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book “The Anxious Generation,” and Haidt’s prescriptions for restricting internet use among children, which Brown endorses. “I don’t have a lot of answers, but I just think we need to reinvest in our own humanity,” he says. “We have to make sure things are going in the right direction.”
In subsequent books, the outside world impinges on Roz’s idyll. “The Wild Robot Escapes” finds Roz navigating the dangers of urban life and humans with guns, while a toxic tide in “The Wild Robot Protects” leaves the animals scrambling for ever more scarce resources. None of this is pedantic, nor is it puffed up with moral outrage. Brown knows children can spot such flaws a mile away. Like all great adventure tales, Brown’s “Wild Robot” stories embrace the wild world in all of its splendor, without ever flinching away from it.
“In the books, I just wanted to acknowledge that the world is complicated, and that people we think are bad aren’t necessarily so,” says Brown, who is currently writing the fourth novel in the “Wild Robot” series. “Behind every bad action is a really complicated story, and I think kids can handle that. They want to be told the truth about things, they want to grapple with the tough parts of life.”
In the 1950s, fear gripped the Philippines as rumors of a blood-drinking vampire spread across the countryside.
One chilling death sparked widespread panic, leaving villagers to wonder if a supernatural predator was lurking in the shadows.
At the same time, the CIA was locked in a brutal struggle against communist Huk rebels, deploying a mysterious operative named Edward Lansdale to lead covert operations. But how far did Lansdale go to crush the rebellion?
In this episode: -Michael Pante, historian -Allan Derain, folklorist
Climbing Mount Everest is a dream for many adventurers around the world – but the iconic mountain peak in Nepal is not just dangerous to climb, it’s also incredibly expensive
10:51, 10 Jun 2025Updated 10:52, 10 Jun 2025
Climbing Mount Everest is very expensive (stock image)(Image: Mint Images via Getty Images)
Mount Everest, the towering peak of the Himalayas, soars to a staggering 8,849 metres (29,032ft) above sea level. Each year, approximately 800 intrepid adventurers attempt to conquer its summit, facing numerous hazards from reliance on bottled oxygen to the threat of hypothermia and frostbite.
Climbers typically spend months acclimatising to the harsh conditions as they gradually ascend the mountain. The climb itself is gruelling due to the severe weather, high altitude, and sheer exhaustion that prevents many from reaching the pinnacle.
Since 1953, around 7,000 climbers have successfully reached the summit.
Embarking on this ascent isn’t just perilous, it’s also incredibly expensive. For those who’ve contemplated scaling Mount Everest, a TikTok user named @geogeek2_8 shed light on the true cost of climbing Everest, leaving viewers gobsmacked.
Only 800 attempt the trek every year (stock image)(Image: Getty)
According to the content creator, you’ll need a permit from Nepal which will set you back $11,000 (£8,000). Additionally, you’ll need to employ guides and sherpas to help you navigate the brutal conditions, costing anywhere between $5,000 and $8,000 (between £3,700 and £5,900).
The necessary gear for the trek, ranging from boots to oxygen tanks and high-altitude equipment, can cost anything from $6,000 to $10,000 (£4,400 to £7,400).
And that’s before you’ve even set foot in Nepal. Flights to Lukla Airport, inclusive of grub and porters, can set you back anywhere from $4,000 to $8,000 (£2,900 to £5,900).
All in all, you’re looking at a total cost ranging from $26,000 to $37,000 (£19,300 to £27,462).
However, some reckon the Everest trek costs a fair bit more. According to Alan Arnette, who conquered Everest in 2011 and has reached “just below the Belcony” three other times, for most it will cost between $40,000 to $60,000 to scale Everest, but some people will fork out as much as $200,000.
Climbing Mount Everest isn’t cheap (stock image)(Image: Getty)
Alan detailed how various operators compete on either price or luxuries and technologies, and guides have upped their rates. He also factored in budget for things like insurance, hotel, airport transport and jabs.
When quizzed if the price estimate was a tad low, GeoGeek responded: “There are still many less important costs that have not been included.”
From September, those aiming to ascend the world’s tallest peak during peak season (April to May) will have to cough up a hefty $15,000 (£11,100). For those wishing to climb from September to November, the fee is $7,500 (£5,500), and from December to February, it’s $3,750 (£2,700).
Many viewers were left astounded by the steep cost of ascending the famed peak, as seen in the comments on the video. “11k for a permit? Why?” someone questioned.
GeoGeek answered: “Mount Everest is inside Nepal’s territory, and the government regulates all climbs for safety, environmental protection, and revenue.”
Another chimed in: “With that much money I’d pay my bills and pay off loans! and sleep in my bed without being cold or no oxygen.
“People pay all that money to risk death?” questioned yet another baffled commenter. One more admitted their surprise: “Why did I think it was free?” Another wrote optimistically about alternative travel plans: “For that price I could see all of Europe, Asia and do a lower 48 state road trip”.
ANGE POSTECOGLOU sent a heartwarming text message to Tottenham midfielder Yves Bissouma.
The Aussie boss wassacked on Friday – just 16 days after leading Spurs to their first trophy in 17 years as they beatManchester Unitedin theEuropa Leaguefinal.
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Ange Postecoglou was sacked by Tottenham on Friday
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Spurs midfielder Yves Bissouma has revealed his private WhatsApp exchange with Postecoglou
Many of the Tottenham squad – including captainSon Heung-minandJames Maddison– were quick to post emotional messages of gratitude to Postecoglou.
And Bissouma has now revealed his own WhatsApp exchange with his former manager onSnapchat.
The conversation begins with Postecoglou writing: “Hi Biss. Sorry I missed your call. I am very proud of you.
“It was an honour to share a dressing room with you and appreciate how much you believed in what we were trying to achieve.
“I wish you only the best for the future. I will always be following. Much love from my family to yours.’
Bissouma replied just over an hour later with: “Thank you gaffer and thank you really much for everything on and off the pitch I’ll always be grateful.
“The way you believed me and trusted me was incredible. I’m gonna miss you but it’s football life.
“Got a lot to be said but I think you know what I’m thinking about you already so I’m just wishing you all the best for the future and may God protect you and your family. #bigboss love.”
The exchange ended with the 59-year-old responding: “Always by your side Biss 🙏.”
BBC star shares shock theory as to why Tottenham waited exactly 16 days after Europa League win to sack Ange Postecoglou
Bissouma was one of the best players on the pitch during Spurs’ Europa League final win 16 days before Postecoglou was axed, and has the former Celtic boss saved as ‘Big Ange’ in his phone.
AS Andrew Drury made his way through a Syrian camp looking for notorious ISIS bride Shamima Begum, his mind began to race.
Although the intrepid filmmaker had been in far more perilous situations – his nerves started to get the better of him.
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Andrew Drury with Jihadi bride Shamima BegumCredit: Supplied
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The filmmaker said his view of Begum changed as he got to know herCredit: Supplied
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The Al-Roj camp in north-eastern Syria where Begum livesCredit: AFP
But when he was introduced to Begum – who left the UK aged 15 to join ISIS a decade ago in 2015 – he was taken aback.
“She was very shaky, very nervous, very shut, emotional, tearful,” Andrew told The Sun.
Father-of-four Andrew met Begum, who grew up in East London, for the first of six times at the Al-Roj campinSyria in June 2021 while filming for a documentary, Danger Zone.
In less than two years his view of Begum – accused of serving in the feared IS “morality police” and helping make suicide vests – completely changed, however.
He saw a colder side when she talked about how the death of her three children no longer upset her and even expressed support of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.
Extreme adventurer Andrew, who has made treacherous journeys to North Korea and Iraq, said at first Begum was a “thin, ill-looking, sad character” who was “very apologetic”.
“We took a long walk around the camp, She started to relax, and she said she used to take this regular walk right around the perimeter of the camp to clear her head,” he said.
“After the interview finished, we walked back to the room. Normally she’d go off to a tent, but she wanted to come back to the room to get a cold drink.
“Then I didn’t want to insult her at that point, I wanted to say goodbye – I thought I’d never see her again.
How Shamima Begum camps are fermenting twisted next generation of ISIS as kids make ‘cutthroat’ gesture & hurl firebombs
“I said, ‘Can I shake your hand?’ and she asked for a hug.
“So she gave me a hug and started to cry.”
Andrew, from Surrey, said he felt they had formed a connection and believed she regretted turning her back on Western society to join the murderous death cult.
“At that point I kind of believed that she was sincere,” he said.
I actually don’t think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it
Andrew Drury
“I kind of felt sorry for her. I thought at that point she’d been radicalised online, sent out as a prescribed bridge to somebody.
“She said she’d made a real bad mistake and really regretted what she’d done.
“She owned up to being this person that everybody hates in the UK.
“And I felt sorry for her, I’ve got young daughters, not a lot of difference in age, so I thought people do make mistakes, and I should give her a chance.”
Andrew – whose book Trip Hazard details his experience in dangerous areas – returned to the camp months later after GMB asked for his help to get an interview with Begum.
The author, who has exchanged hundreds of messages with Begum, said he noticed a “subtle change” in the former Brit.
Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, appeared to have undergone a more “Western” makeover – ditching her hijab and abaya.
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Andrew secured the Bafta-nominated live interview with Begum for Good Morning BritainCredit: Alamy
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Begum, then 19, pictured in 2019Credit: Times Media Ltd
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The former Brit at the camp in 2021Credit: Getty
“She had changed as a character,” Andrew said.
“She was more short. She wasn’t this nervous-cry sort of character.
“She looked assured, and she didn’t seem such a waif character, and she seemed to be in control of herself and her emotions.”
Andrew told how Begum spent the night before the live interview “rehearsing” with three of her friends In the camp, which is controlled by armed guards.
He added: “Her friends said they’d had their music playing and they were tutoring Shamima what to say.
“They seemed pretty together about what she should say, and they were schooling her.”
Begum married an IS fighter soon after arriving in Syria and went on to have three children, none of whom survived.
Andrew – who said he had formed a “bond” with Begum – told how after the interview, Shamima opened her purse and showed him photos of her children.
The tragic loss of his own brother Robert as a child made him sympathise with Shamima’s plight.
“One of them was a scene where the child must have been eight, nine months old, had chocolate around his face,” he recalled.
“I said, ‘What’s that?’ and she said, ‘Oh we used to like baking cakes’.
“And it actually makes me quite sad. It was really quite sad knowing the child had died.
“She made it sound like an honour that she had shared these pictures with me, which I guess it probably was, because she hadn’t shared them before she said.”
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But it was Begum’s attitude after Andrew returned to the UK that shocked him – and began to shatter their relationship.
“I said to her, ‘Those pictures you showed me really upset me, I hope you’re okay’,” he said.
“She messaged back and said, ‘Oh, they don’t bother me anymore. That doesn’t make me sad’.
“I thought, was that because she’s been traumatised so badly?
“But I think she is that hard. I think she’s calculated.
“I actually don’t think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it.”
After meeting Andrew a couple of times, Begum started asking him to bring stuff into the camp for her – including clothes.
The dad said he felt “at a crossroads” about whether to take what she wanted.
“I felt bad and guilty that I’d be taking somebody that carried out what could have been some atrocities, clothes,” he said.
“But then, probably on the soft side of me, and the fact is, she was a young girl, so I was playing with these emotions, but I took her the clothes from Primark.
“We had a bundle of stuff, we took some toys for the children because it’s not their fault.”
But then Begum’s requests started turning into demands, Andrew said.
“The messages continued,” he added.
Camps breeding next ISIS generation
Exclusive by Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor and Alan Duncan
A CHILD no older than eight draws his hand across his neck in a chilling throat-slitting gesture – the message is clear, “You are not welcome here”.
Other kids hurl stones, shout and scream – while one exasperated camp official shows us CCTV of two youngsters hurling a firebomb.
Welcome to camps al-Hol and al-Roj in northern Syria – the fates of which remain uncertain after the fall of tyrant Bashar al-Assad.
It is warned these stark detention centres are now the breeding ground for the next generation of the bloodthirsty cult.
And much of this new wave of radicalisation is feared to be coming from the mothers inside the camps.
Senior camp official Rashid Omer said: “The reality is – they are not changing. This is not a normal camp – this a bomb.”
He went on: “They are saying it was ISIS who ‘liberated’ Damascus – and soon they will be coming here.”
“And then they want to spread to Europe, to Africa, and then to everywhere.”
The two sprawling sites hold a total of nearly 60,000 including ISIS fighters, families and children.
At least 6,000 Westerners are still held among them – including infamous jihadi bride Shamima Begum, the 25-year-old from London.
“This time they became slightly more angry, slightly more direct.”
Before he planned to return to Syria again, Begum told him she wanted two books – Guantanamo Bay Diaries and Sea Prayer – which is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis.
Andrew said she was also being schooled by her lawyer about her media presence.
He added: “What she declared by then is that she was hostage in a prison camp – where they were legally held.
“That’s how she started to see herself. All apologies had gone.
“She’d done a documentary with the BBC and was on the front of The Times magazine.
“She’d become a celebrity and was loving all the attention. She’d read all the newspaper articles.”
Andrew – who returned to the camp with a friend and no crew – took some clothes for Begum with him.
I could see things in her I didn’t like. I didn’t trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive
Andrew Drury
But it was his decision not to take the books she had demanded that revealed her true colours.
“I did go back again, but my feelings were already changing towards her,” Andrew said.
“It was a little boy’s birthday, and I felt so sorry for him.
“He wanted a Superman outfit, so I would have gone just for that, because I spend a lot of time in refugee camps. It’s not fair for these kids.
“I didn’t take the books Shamima wanted because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want her to have that opportunity to what I saw as studying how to be a victim.
“She opened the clothes, said she didn’t like them. I mean, this is a girl in a prison camp.
“She said, ‘I didn’t really care about the clothes, it was the books I wanted’. So she became quite aggressive in her nature.”
Who is Shamima Begum?
ISIS bride Shamima Begum, who was born in Britain, was stripped of her British citizenship on February 20, 2019.
Begum’s attitude then worsened when Andrew became interested in another girl’s story.
It was one of the final nails in the coffin in the bond Andrew believed they had initially formed.
“Shamima had a tantrum that the attention had been taken away from her,” he said.
“She was like a child that was pretending they were ill.
“So during this period of time I was beginning to feel like the connection was gone.
“It was broken, and I was beginning not to like her.
“I could see things in her I didn’t like. I didn’t trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive.
“I had found out from other girls what she was accused of, and they told me the same thing that I had heard before, like sewing suicide vests
“Things were ringing in my head like she said early on that the Manchester bombing was legitimate because of what happened in Iraq and Syria.
“So I didn’t trust her.”
Andrew’s last contact with Begum was around two years ago in a fiery text exchange.
She accused Andrew of “selling her out”, to which he shot back: “You’ve sold your country out.”
Begum last year lost her final appeal challenging the removal of her British citizenship.
She can now no longer fight to overturn the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system.
Andrew said: “I think she’s a danger for what she stood for, and I don’t think she could ever come back.
“I think she needs to go on trial in Syria for the crimes she committed against the Syrian people.”
Guy Molyneux is president of the Next America Foundation, an educational organization founded by Michael Harrington
WASHINGTON — As Republicans gather this week in Houston, we hear much talk of conservatives and conservatism. Is George Bush a true conservative? Will conservatives support the President, or stay home? Is the movement intellectually exhausted? Who will emerge to lead conservatives in 1996?
But these discussions all overlook one significant point: The Republicans are not really a conservative party. Indeed, we might say of American conservatism, as Mohandas K. Gandhi said of Western civilization–”It would be a good idea.”
True conservatism is a philosophy committed to conserving– conserving families, communities and nation in the face of change. Committed to preserving fundamental values, such as accountability, civic duty and the rule of law. And committed to a strong government to realize these ends. What passes for conservatism in America today bears only a passing resemblance to this true conservatism. It worships at the twin altars of free enterprise and weak government–two decidedly unconservative notions.
Real conservatism values security and stability over the unfettered free market. In Germany, for example, it was the conservative Otto von Bismark–not socialists–who developed social insurance and built the world’s first welfare state. Today conservatives throughout the world–but not here–endorse government-provided national health care, because they recognize public needs are not always met by the private sector. And they see a role for government in encouraging national economic development.
A true conservative movement would not ignore the decay of our great cities, or see the disorder of the Los Angeles riots only as a political opportunity. Nor would they pay homage to “free trade” while the nation’s manufacturing base withered. Nor would a conservative President veto pro-family legislation requiring companies to provide leave to new mothers, in deference to business prerogatives.
Traditional conservatives champion community and nation over the individual. They esteem public service, and promote civic obligation. They reject the “invisible hand” argument, that everyone’s pursuit of individual self-interest will magically yield the best public outcome, believing instead in deliberately cultivating virtue. Authentic conservatives do not assail 55 m.p.h. speed limits and seat-belt laws as encroaching totalitarianism.
Finally, a genuine conservatism values the future over the present. It is a movement of elites to be sure, but of elites who feel that their privilege entails special obligations. The old word for this was “stewardship”–the obligation to care for the nation’s human and natural resources, and to look out for future generations’ interests.
Such conservatives would not open up public lands for private commercial exploitation, or undermine environmental regulations for short-term economic growth. They would not cut funding for childrens’ vaccinations, knowing that the cost of treating illness is far greater. And a conservative political party would never preside over a quadrupling of the national debt.
In America, then, what we call conservatism is really classical liberalism: a love of the market, and hatred of government. Adam Smith, after all, was a liberal, not a conservative. As the economist Gunnar Myrdal once noted: “America is conservative . . . but the principles conserved are liberal.”
American conservatives have often celebrated the country’s historically “exceptional” character: the acceptance of capitalism and the absence of any significant socialist movement. Curiously, though, they often miss their half of the story: the absence of a real Tory conservatism. What Louis Hartz called America’s “liberal consensus” excluded both of the great communitarian traditions–ain’t nobody here but us liberals.
True conservatism’s weakness as a political tradition in America is thus an old story. When values confront the market here, the market usually wins. In recent years, though, conservative social values seem to have been eclipsed. Many of today’s conservatives are really libertarians–proponents of a radical individualism that has little in common with conservatism. Consider some very non-conservative messages that conservatives have delivered in the past two weeks.
Conservative GOP leaders called on the President to propose massive new tax cuts as the centerpiece for a possible second term. Fiscal responsibility, apparently, is no longer part of conservative doctrine–if it gets in the way of a nice capital gains tax cut.
The Wall Street Journal assailed Maryland for introducing a new 75-hour community-service requirement for high school students. What about teaching values in school? Or putting nation before self?
When it comes to good conservative values, today’s conservatives talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk. Look at Dan Quayle, the elected official who supposedly most speaks to real conservatives. Every day, the vice president is out there talking about traditional values, and slaying liberal dragons like Murphy Brown. His agenda: tax dollars for parochial schools, banning abortion, allowing school prayer. This is the 1980 Moral Majority program. Yet, after 12 years in power, the Republican Party has delivered nothing to social conservatives–the closest thing we have in this country to authentic conservatives. Republicans’ business allies, on the other hand, have reaped tremendous gains in such areas as taxation, regulation and labor relations. There are many social-issue conservatives in the GOP, but when it comes to governing, they are clearly the junior partners.
These social issues are trotted out every four years, but it’s just a ritual, like hanging Christmas lights on the front porch. The rest of the time, they sit in the Republican basement. For them, it’s simply a matter of electoral opportunism–a way to attract working-class voters whose economic interests drew them to the Democrats. Now Barry M. Goldwater, the grand old man of American conservatism, has called on the party to abandon its anti-abortion commitment. The political calculus has changed, and so must the platform. Individual liberty is the important point now. It would appear that the ban on abortion was only in there to win votes in the first place–if it doesn’t do that, what’s the point?
The future seems to lie with the libertarians. We should expect more Republicans like Gov. Pete Wilson, who prides himself on savaging the social safety net. Personal freedom is the message: free to have an abortion, also free to go hungry.
However, this does not bode well for conservatives’ long-term electoral fortunes. Economic liberalism is a weak political force in countries with conservative and social-democratic alternatives. Historically, lower-class voters have been mobilized by appeals to class solidarity on the one hand, or religion and nationalism on the other. Liberalism is the credo of the upper middle class.
The historical failure of American elites to embrace authentic conservatism is a loss for the nation. Even liberals–in the American sense–should regret this void. In fact, they should be most concerned. Conservatives would resist the relentless privatization of our social and economic life, and help rein in the nation’s free-market excesses. If real conservatives had been in charge in the 1980s, we might have been spared the orgy of speculation, takeover and deregulation that so weakened our economy.
The free market, after all, is a powerful force for change. It creates and destroys communities, sunders families and undermines traditional values. People desire protection from it for sound conservative reasons–they want security and stability. A genuine conservatism would provide a kind of social ballast for a nation constantly buffeted by change.
America is too liberal for its own good. Our brand of conservatism is too American for its own good. Maybe it’s time to let conservatives be conservatives.
He had the ability to communicate with God, the angels and one of the most powerful spirits in the voodoo religion.
This is what Won-G Bruny had been texting Lil Mosey for years. Bruny, a music manager who himself had started out as a hip-hop artist, believed he had a special connection with the spiritual realm that would help guide the up-and-coming Mosey’s rap career. In 2021, Bruny took the musician, then 19, to his native Haiti where, deep in the woods, he blessed the young man with what he described as his family power. After Mosey was accused of rape, Bruny urged him to partake in a Haitian rum-bath ritual; when Mosey was acquitted in March 2023, Bruny told him the voodoo gods had taken a hand in the verdict.
Won-G Bruny, left, and Lil Mosey attend the 66th Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California.
(Johnny Nunez / Getty Images for the Recording Academy)
Bruny soon began urging Mosey to get out of his contract with Interscope Records, the company that signed him in 2017, after the then-16-year old’s debut single went viral. During Mosey’s five-year relationship with Interscope, Bruny believed the would-be star was not compensated fairly by the label.
“I want to express my disappointment on how … Interscope … have treated Mosey. I think it’s disgusting and despicable. You play with my clients career and have caused him mental trama [sic] …,” Bruny wrote in an August 2023 email to two executive vice presidents at Interscope that was viewed by The Times. “Believe me, you’ve never dealt with anyone like me in real life from the spiritual haiti [sic] I am indigenous and have techniques that the eye cannot see. If 48 hours go by and we do not have a release this is going public in a very bad way for you and Interscope. And I will arrive to your office soon as the worst [N-word] you every [sic] met.”
The message was signed: “Worst Nightmare.”
Interscope’s media representatives and the label executives Bruny emailed did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
Angela Thatcher, Mosey’s mother, never had a good feeling about Bruny. After accompanying her son on the trip to Haiti, the early-childhood educator had advised him to be wary of Bruny: “If he’s trying to finesse you,” she said she told him, “please do not fall for it. I think he talks a lot bigger than he actually is.”
“I just want my son away from [Bruny]. I think he’s being controlled and manipulated by this guy who has convinced him that everyone in his life is against him, including his own family.”
— Angela Thatcher, Lil Mosey’s late mother
Big was how Bruny lived. On social media, he portrayed himself as a wealthy jetsetter, driving around Beverly Hills in a buffed Rolls-Royce one day, partying with soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo on a private yacht in the United Arab Emirates the next. He favored the trappings of the hip-hop culture he’d aspired to since he was a boy: heavy diamond chains, Rolex watches, tailored blazers that showcased his considerable biceps. His shiny veneers and taut skin make it difficult to ascertain his age — public records list various birth dates, putting him somewhere in the range of 46 to 53.
By the time he met Mosey, Bruny had spent decades honing his skills as a promoter. When he embarked on his career as a rapper in his 20s, he got Paris Hilton and Carmen Electra to appear in his music videos and turned up on “The Real Housewives of Orange County” to help one of its stars record her first song. He teamed with former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca on a ballot initiative, promoting himself as a law enforcement-friendly rapper. For a time, he managed rappers Sean Kingston and Tyga. These were among the associations he boasted of in the promotional materials he shared with potential investors, collaborators and those Interscope executives to spotlight his accomplishments.
Won-G and Paris Hilton
(Getty Images / Jeff Kravitz via FilmMagic)
Mosey’s mother didn’t buy it. Though she had no evidence that Bruny was defrauding Mosey, Thatcher believed the manager was a negative influence. In 2023, she started doing more than just regularly checking the Instagram page where Bruny had 487,000 followers. When Google searches turned up references to lawsuits and scam alert websites, she hired a private investigator. The findings revealed numerous civil suits against Bruny alleging breach of contract, as well as a bankruptcy filing.
Thatcher shared the report with her son. But Mosey, just a few weeks out of his Interscope contract, continued working with Bruny, cutting ties with his old representatives and, according to Thatcher, distancing himself from her.
In October 2024, Thatcher died unexpectedly, of “a severe infection,” according to her obituary. She was 55.
“I just want my son away from [Bruny],” Thatcher said in an interview with The Times last summer. “I think he’s being controlled and manipulated by this guy who has convinced him that everyone in his life is against him, including his own family.”
A Times investigation found that, over the past two decades, Bruny has utilized a perception of affluence, supposed personal ties to celebrity and references to Haitian voodoo to convince more than two dozen people to give him thousands of dollars in investments or loans — money that they never saw again, according to lawsuits and bankruptcy filings. In the last 20 years, Bruny, or companies associated with him, have been sued at least 19 times in Los Angeles County Superior Court; in nine of those cases, he was ordered to pay judgments amounting to more than $2.1 million, none of which was ever paid.
During that period, he filed for bankruptcy three times in California, most recently in 2019, when between his personal and business Chapter 7 records he was discharged of roughly $9.9 million in debt liabilities.
Lawsuits and bankruptcy filings show a striking range of individuals who say they lost money through investments in Bruny’s music career and fashion line, including a septuagenarian Old Hollywood starlet, a cancer patient, a former girlfriend, an Australian fashion designer, an airline pilot and a UCLA professor who served on committees for Presidents Biden and Obama. Because the U.S. Bankruptcy Court found he had no legal obligation to pay his debts, none of them were ever repaid by Bruny.
Bruny did not respond to multiple requests for comment or a detailed list of questions sent to him by The Times via email and social media. His lawyer, Kenneth Sterling, said in a statement: “We find no merit to the allegations or implications currently circulating regarding Mr. Bruny. While, like many others, Mr. Bruny acknowledges he has grown from mistakes made in the distant past, these are nearly or more than a decade old and wholly irrelevant to his current work or character. It is worth noting that this current media inquiry appears to have been instigated by a former manager and relative of one of Mr. Bruny’s clients — individuals who, based on credible information, mismanaged and acted in their own financial interests at the expense of the artist.
“To be clear: Mr. Bruny has never been arrested, charged, or the subject of any criminal investigation. He has no criminal record. Any civil matters from years past have long been resolved and are, in every sense, ancient history. We live in a society that believes in growth, redemption, and new chapters — Mr. Bruny embodies all three.”
Mosey declined to be interviewed for this story, saying via text message that he had “nothing but great things to say about Won.” When asked specifically if he believed a former manager and relative mismanaged and acted in their own financial interests at his expense, Mosey did not respond.
Lil Mosey, now 23, was born Lathan Moses Stanley Echols; his father, Thatcher said, wasn’t very involved in his upbringing. He was 15 when his music started to take off online — he and his two brothers created a makeshift studio in a closet of their Washington state home, where Mosey made music that he then uploaded onto SoundCloud. In late 2017, his song “Pull Up” garnered attention on a rap blog. Music manager Josh Marshall reached out and flew the then-16-year-old and his mother to New York City. After discussions with about half a dozen companies, Mosey, represented by Marshall, signed with Interscope in March 2018. His debut album, “Northsbest,” was released that same year.
By 10th grade, Mosey had dropped out of high school and gone on tour with Juice WRLD and YBN Cordae. He told Billboard at the time that he was surprised by his sudden popularity. Asked how his mother was reacting to his newfound fame, Mosey told the magazine: “She always told me like, ‘Why do you want to do this? Why don’t you wait? You can always do this later. You could just be a normal kid.’ … But you can’t do it later. The time is now.”
Mosey’s sophomore album, “Certified Hitmaker,” took him to the next level. Featuring Chris Brown and Gunna, the 2019 release yielded the rapper’s first hit single: “Blueberry Faygo.” After the song went viral on TikTok, Mosey inked a $4-million deal with Universal Music Publishing Group in May 2020; to date, “Blueberry Faygo” has amassed 1.4 billion streams on Spotify.
His ascent to stardom came to an abrupt halt in April 2021, when the state of Washington charged Mosey with second-degree rape. An affidavit filed in Lewis County Superior Court alleged that, in January 2020, Mosey had sex at a house party with a young woman who was too intoxicated to consent.
Interscope did not terminate Mosey’s contract but put its work with the rapper on pause until a verdict was reached.
Tyga, left, and Won-G in 2019.
(Johnny Nunez / Getty Images)
According to Thatcher, it was during the two-year trial that Mosey’s relationship with Bruny deepened. He had met Bruny through Sean Kingston, then best known for the 2007 hit “Beautiful Girls.”
According to press clippings he posted on social media, Won-G Bruny was born in Port-Au Prince, Haiti, and immigrated to the U.S. when he was 13. Bruny’s father, MacNeal Bruny, has said he was a high-ranking member of the Haitian army during the authoritarian regime of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. After MacNeal noticed an advertisement for a company that would press compact discs for cheap, Bruny embarked on a music career, releasing his first independent rap album in 1995.
In 2001, he teamed up with an unlikely partner — Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, who was attempting to become a rap mogul. Mangue released Bruny’s third album on his newly launched TNO Entertainment.
But that album was unsuccessful, and TNO never released any music of note. When Bruny filed for bankruptcy for the first time, in 2002, he owed TNO $75,000 relating to a recording contract.
Bruny forged ahead. In 2004, he landed his first record deal with a major label: Sanctuary Urban, an imprint headed by Beyoncé’s dad, Mathew Knowles. That year, Bruny also teamed up with L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca to support a ballot initiative that proposed raising taxes to fund broader law enforcement. To help gather signatures for the initiative, Bruny said he planned to drive around the city with his “Haiti Boys Street Team” in 28 Ford Excursions with 27-inch wheels plastered with decals of him and Baca.
“Pictures belie personality,” Baca told the Los Angeles Daily News, which described Bruny as a “rapper with a $250,000 Elvis watch and penchant for fur coats and Rolls-Royces.” “He’s a faith-based hip-hop star. No vulgarity. No anti-public safety … There’s nothing in his work that’s bad boy.”
But Bruny had had at least one previous run-in with the law. In 1998, a judge in Pomona granted Bruny’s ex-girlfriend a one-year domestic violence restraining order. In court documents, the woman claimed that she and Bruny had been dating for two years and “during that time he demonstrated extreme physical violence by kicking, slapping, grabbing, bruising, spitting on my face and cutting my face.”
A year after his philanthropic efforts with the sheriff, Bruny began facing a string of lawsuits. There were four in 2005 alone, all alleging breach of contract. One case revolved around Bruny’s first role in a movie, an independent film called “Hack!” During production, the plaintiff — director Mike Wittlin — claimed that Bruny missed a day of shooting, leading the actor and the filmmaker to get into a heated verbal dispute. Following the argument, Bruny refused to return to set, according to the lawsuit. In his complaint, Wittlin said he then received an email from Bruny’s father, MacNeal, drafted “on behalf” of his son, which read: “I’m from a Royal family, little do you know. … I’m a self-made man and a self-made millionaire.”
When he was deposed in 2006, Bruny arrived wearing what Wittlin’s attorney described as a “large diamond ring” that Bruny said was owned by his father. “I just told you I don’t own anything,” Bruny said, according to the transcript. “I’m not a millionaire, I’m bankrupt.”
The court ultimately dismissed the case on the condition that Bruny pay $25,000 to the plaintiffs; according to a 2008 court judgment, he breached that settlement and was subsequently ordered to pay $108,236.25 in damages and fees. Wittlin told The Times he never received any of the money.
A clean-cut, God-fearing rapper. That was how Bruny represented himself to a pair of friends in their 70s.
Gita Hall, then 71, and Terry Moore, then 75, met for lunch nearly every day at Caffe Roma in 2004. They’d reminisce about the golden era of Hollywood: Hall, a onetime Miss Stockholm, had been photographed by Richard Avedon as a Revlon model and appeared in films like 1958’s “The Gun Runners”; Moore earned an Oscar nomination for her turn in 1952’s “Come Back, Little Sheba,” had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and dated Howard Hughes.
Grant Cramer, Moore’s son and a film producer, had an office a block away from his mother’s favorite restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, she wandered in unannounced with Hall and about 10 Haitian men he’d never met.
“They all sat down and said, ‘We are hereby announcing that we are becoming hip-hop moguls,’” said Cramer. “‘We’re going to raise all this money and become his producers.’”
He was stunned. He was fairly certain the women had never heard a hip-hop song before. After Bruny and his entourage left the office, Cramer tried desperately to talk them out of their new plan.
“But they were dead set on it,” said Cramer. “I said, ‘You’re going to lose your money. You don’t know who these guys are.’ And they said, ‘Oh, yes, we do. They’re Christian.’ Bruny had shown them this video he made with Paris Hilton, told them it was the new hottest thing, that he needed money to release a new album and they were gonna make 10 times their money.’”
(Through her publicist, Hilton did not respond to a request for comment.)
Hall had just moved back to Los Angeles after decades in Manhattan following the death of her husband. She wasn’t wealthy but had enough money to sustain her lifestyle, said one of her daughters, Tracie May Wagner.
Wagner joined Hall and Bruny for dinner at Mr. Chow one evening in an attempt to suss out her mother’s unlikely new friend.
“He rolls in, in his Rolls-Royce, handshake handshake, I know everybody on the planet,” remembered Wagner, a former entertainment publicist who now lives in Vietnam. “On first impression, he was very kind and sweet and doting. He would open the door for you. He would pull out my mother’s chair. He’d have this look in his eye of adoration, like, ‘I’m such a fan of yours. I know you were such a movie star.’ He would just keep playing into her reliving her golden years in her heyday.”
Hall ultimately loaned Bruny $93,000 under a contract that promised she’d be repaid in six months. But the day she and Moore transferred their money to Bruny, “Won-G and the money disappeared,” Cramer said.
“No album, no nothing,” said Cramer, who did not know the sum Moore invested. “Money’s gone.”
Hall sued Bruny, making similar allegations. In 2007, a judge ordered the rapper to pay her $107,319.45 — a sum her attorney said the family was unlikely to ever collect.
“When it was time to seize assets, he had none,” said Hall’s daughter, Wagner. “The mansion in Beverly Hills, all the cars, the jewelry — it was all registered under someone else’s name.”
That same year, Bruny appeared on two episodes of the Orange County installment of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise. In Season 2, cast member Jo De La Rosa decided she wanted to be a singer. She invited Bruny and another producer to her home to discuss the possibility of collaborating.
“Won-G is a rap artist, producer, super-talented, amazing person,” De La Rosa said in a voice-over as Bruny exited a white Rolls-Royce in her driveway. “He’s worked with some big names in the music industry.”
De La Rosa recorded a song with Bruny but soon abandoned her musical pursuits. Bruny also shifted in another direction, attempting to expand his brand from music to fashion.
Taking a page from wealthy rappers like Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Sean “Diddy” Combs, he created an extensive pitch deck for investors, explaining how he’d use his music career to leverage “ancillary revenue possibilities” with a clothing line called Sovage. His business documents said he had signed Philippe Naouri, one of the designers behind Antik Denim, to create his jeans. (Naouri did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Bruny’s deck also included collages of him with dozens of celebrities — Kanye West, Bill Maher, Fergie — as well as images of him taken by paparazzi. His pitch said his forthcoming album would feature “exciting collaborations” with artists like Snoop Dogg, Alicia Keys and Timbaland, none of which ever came to fruition.
In 2001, Garry Heath, a technology executive, loaned Bruny $170,000. When he reached out to Bruny for repayment, Heath said the rapper warned him to stop “harassing” him because his father was “connected in Haiti. My family could really do damage to you if you don’t watch out.” One day, Heath said, Bruny’s father and brother turned up at his home in Orange County trying “to bury some voodoo thing in my yard that was gonna ‘protect me’ from losing my money or something … they wanted me to pay them, or else it was going to turn into a curse.”
In 2016, Heath finally decided to take Bruny to court. After a process server was unable to track him down to deliver legal documents for nearly two years, Heath said, a judge ultimately decided that posting the lawsuit on Bruny’s active Facebook page constituted service.
Bruny evaded service and court proceedings so many times that at least seven plaintiffs, including Heath, received default judgments in their favor in advance of any trials.
When she was fighting to recoup her late mother’s money, Wagner often relied on her connections with colleagues in the publicity industry to find out what events Bruny might attend. Then she’d show up to confront him. But after a few years without any movement in court, she backed off. “I knew it was never going to amount to anything, and I started having fear,” she said.
In December 2019, Bruny filed for personal bankruptcy and non-individual bankruptcy on behalf of his company, Real Sovage, claiming $9.9 million in debt liabilities. In his bankruptcy documents, Bruny said his personal assets amounted to just $10,700, about half of which consisted of “real & costume jewelry.”
“Debtor is currently living with friends until he is back up on his feet,” said the paperwork. “He hopes to be able to move into his own home within the next 6 months.”
On Instagram, Bruny had been depicting a very different image. Earlier that year, he posted a photo featuring himself, the rapper Tyga (his first major management client) and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “I’m so happy to be your friend and to study and learn your method to success,” the caption of the February 2019 photo read. (A source close to Bezos said the billionaire doesn’t know Bruny and has never interacted with him beyond posing for the photograph.)
“He had the audacity to come to court in a T-shirt and flip-flops, looking like he was in poverty just a few days after posting pictures of himself driving a Rolls-Royce car and wearing a Rolex watch.”
— Garry Heath, a creditor who faced Won-G Bruny in bankruptcy court
In October, Bruny’s dad shared an image on Facebook of a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon — which retails for over $100,000 — describing it as “A VERY EXPENSIVE & PRECIOUS GIFT FROM WON-G AND HIS PARTNER TO SHOW ME THEIR APPRECIATION”.
Angered by the lifestyle he saw online, Heath — whom Bruny had yet to pay a $229,984 judgment — unsuccessfully attempted to get his money back in court.
“He had the audacity to come to court in a T-shirt and flip-flops, looking like he was in poverty just a few days after posting pictures of himself driving a Rolls-Royce car and wearing a Rolex watch,” said Heath, who presented images from Bruny’s Instagram page to the court. “He said the car was borrowed from a friend and the gold chains and watch were fakes.”
After a bankruptcy is filed, creditors can meet a trustee to ask questions about the finances of the debtor. In California, creditors then have 60 days to file a complaint like Heath did, objecting to the discharging of a specific debt. It is unclear if any of the 25 other creditors listed in Bruny’s personal filing took this step — but legal experts say such paperwork often falls through the cracks.
“Bankruptcy is premised on all the creditors receiving notice of the bankruptcy case and either taking action or not. But people don’t read their mail,” said Evan Borges, the attorney who represented “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Girardi in the bankruptcy proceedings against her estranged husband, disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi. “It’s a hard-and-fast deadline to file a complaint, and if people miss it, they’re screwed.”
Without such complaints, it falls on the trustee appointed by the Justice Department to monitor Chapter 7 cases for potential fraud. “But they drop the ball all the time,” said Borges. “They’re there as watchdogs to safeguard the integrity of the system, and they’re supposed to refer people who have abused the bankruptcy system to the United States attorney for criminal prosecution. But they’re extremely overworked and can barely keep up.”
Even as he filed bankruptcy, Bruny was entering a business relationship with Tyga, a Grammy-nominated artist whose hit “Rack City” was then quadruple platinum. In his subsequent press materials, Bruny took credit for orchestrating “a huge comeback” for Tyga, whose music had become less popular than his relationship with Kylie Jenner.
But Bruny and Tyga parted acrimoniously. In April 2022, Bruny sued Tyga, alleging breach of contract and promissory fraud, saying he was owed $800,000 for his work on behalf of the rapper. A few months later, Bruny’s lawyer requested the case be dismissed. (Tyga did not respond to a request for comment sent to his publicist.)
By then, Bruny had moved on with Kingston, another partnership that would crash and burn.
“He promised us the world. He promised my son, ‘If you sign the papers, I have a $3-million deal,’” Janice Turner, Kingston’s mother, said in an interview.
During the year Kingston and Bruny worked together, Turner said, Bruny received 20% of everything Kingston made off his prior hits, but they were not satisfied with the partnership. Turner said she kicked Bruny out of the house he was sharing with her and Kingston and fired him. “I told him, ‘You’re a failed artist trying to live through other people,’” she said. “He was upset with me. He said that’s why God doesn’t like me.”
(In March, in a case unrelated to Bruny, a Florida jury found Turner and Kingston guilty of wire fraud for failing to pay for more than $1 million in luxury goods. Turner and Kingston await sentencing in July.)
As Bruny’s relationship with Kingston soured, he was strengthening his bond with Lil Mosey.
They began sharing a Redondo Beach rental — “I have a mansion in Beverly Hills, but it’s cooler here for the summer,” Bruny claimed, according to Mosey’s mom Thatcher. By the fall, Bruny had floated his first business proposition to Mosey: investing $50,000 in a four-unit apartment building being built by a company called Harmony Real Estate Developments.
“See when Justin [Bieber] gave Scooter [Braun] his trust they went to billions,” Bruny texted Mosey in February 2023, when he sent through more details about the project. “This is how I want to be for you as being seen together as business partners will take us to a whole new level.”
But Mosey’s team advised him against pursuing the opportunity. His funds were dwindling as he continued to fight the rape charge. As a jury prepared to deliver its verdict, Bruny urged Mosey to partake in a rum-bath ritual, according to two sources close to the situation. In the voodoo religion, rum baths are used “for good luck or to take off something bad,” said Elizabeth McAlister, a Wesleyan University professor whose research centers on Afro-Carribbean religions like Haitian voodoo.
On March 2, 2023, Mosey was acquitted.
“It’s been tough, mentally,” the rapper admitted to Billboard in an interview a month later. “It sucks to have something like that be attached to my name, knowing I didn’t do it, and the whole world can see that. … I feel like my last two years kind of been a sickness.”
While facing bills from the trial and the interruption of his music career, Mosey’s bank account had dwindled from millions down to a couple hundred thousand dollars — and he owed more than that in legal bills, according to a former business associate who requested anonymity because he still works in the music industry. Mosey’s team worked out a payment plan with Mosey’s attorney and jumped into action, setting up a nationwide college tour to bring in immediate revenue.
But Mosey wasn’t interested in doing the shows.
“Suddenly this tour that had been put in place wasn’t enough money, and he kept saying he deserved more,” his mother said.
Then Mosey began requesting his financial documents from his accounting team — materials he had never before asked to view. The team obliged. Gathering nearly 70,000 pages of bank statements, royalty metrics and tax returns, members of Mosey’s team, his mother and Marshall, met in L.A.
At the Glendale rental where Mosey was staying, Thatcher said, the team presented a new business strategy, suggesting new profit avenues like a beverage company or a lifestyle brand. But Mosey felt like he was being ambushed, his mother said.
Before she left, Thatcher made a final plea: “Please promise me you won’t sign a contract with Won-G,” she said. “Think about it. Talk to other people. You don’t have to sign a contract with him yet.”
Thatcher did not manage her son’s career, though she was a signer on his bank account when he was a minor. In recent years, he sent her around $4,000 a month to cover her rent in Washington, according to Mosey’s former business associate. Sometimes, Thatcher said, she would offer Mosey financial advice — “I think you’re spending too much. I know it feels like a lot of money right now, but this is not gonna last you forever” — but he disregarded it. She was also wary of becoming “that mom that took money from my son,” so she kept her job in the education sector.
Before her death, she’d started work on a trilogy of children’s books with an L.A.-based husband-and-wife writing team, Maya Sloan and Thomas Warming. The couple became some of the only people she confided to about Mosey.
“I felt terrible for Angela, because I saw her desperation and anguish when she’d come to L.A. in the hopes of just having a brief moment with her son,” said Warming. “She would keep motel rooms and wait for him to call or sit in cars outside his house to try to talk to him. That’s how difficult it had become.”
Sloan began helping Thatcher research Bruny and connected her with a private investigator. When the PI report confirmed Thatcher’s fears, she pressed Mosey for an in-person meeting. According to Thatcher, Mosey went home and read through the background documents. A half an hour later, he called, saying “I don’t know what to do. I’m really confused.’”
“I said, ‘Well, I know you’ve signed a contract with him. But if you really want, there’s always a way out. And I’m here for you,’” Thatcher said.
That night, he left the home he shared with Bruny and stayed in a hotel. Still uneasy, he flew back to Seattle to visit his family in Washington. But by the end of the trip, any concerns he’d had about Bruny had seemingly vanished. He returned to L.A., and they continued working together.
Mosey had given his mother something that would provide her with insight into his relationship with Bruny: His old phone, which was still logged into Mosey’s account. She had access to his text messages.
She began scrolling through her son’s interactions with Bruny. In August 2023, she saw herself mentioned: Mosey was urging him to stop mentioning voodoo in conversation with his mother.
“you gotta stop saying your the reason i beat the case bro cuz even if ogu is the reason i beat it anybody that does not know what voodoo is will not believe you and it makes you look bad for trying to take credit,” Mosey said in a text message. “not saying that you and ogu did not help i’m just saying it makes you look bad cuz most people will not believe you.”
But in the days that followed, Bruny mentioned Ogu, a warrior god, numerous times as the battle with Interscope ramped up.
“papa ogu never loses or fails. … I have won battles taken Artist out of many situations that are legal contractual,” Bruny texted his client. “You have to be a killer, I’m like trump. … You have 24 hours to give me a answer or I will drop a bomb on you.”
“my Power is ordained by God, No one will understand the angels that walk with me … My father & Ogu walk with us, interscope are fools”
— A 2023 text from Bruny to Mosey
After Bruny sent his Aug. 22 email to Interscope executives demanding Mosey be let out of his contract, text messages revealed he continued to press other members of the rapper’s team. Two days later, he messaged Marshall, Mosey’s prior manager, demanding him to aid in the situation with the record label.
“I now have everybody’s home address and will pop up to their home at 1 AM in the morning and start waking them up by knocking on your door,” Bruny wrote to Marshall in a text reviewed by The Times. “We are very smart it is not a threat. It is not a violent act in America. You’re allowed to walk up to anybody you want and have a discussion with them.” (Marshall did not respond to interview requests for this story.)
In the end, Interscope agreed to let Mosey out of his contract with the stipulation that the company would continue to collect around 2% of his future earnings, according to the former business associate.
“my Power is ordained by God, No one will understand the angels that walk with me,” Bruny texted Mosey after the deal was executed. “My father & Ogu walk with us, interscope are fools … What interscope feared happened., you finding me was the blow. God, Ogu destroyed all of them, including that lying bitch in court.”
Thatcher was so worried about her son that she consulted Rick Ross, a cult intervention specialist whom she and Sloan had seen pop up in a few true crime documentaries. While she considered hiring Ross, she continued to strategize with Sloan. Last August, they approached the FBI about Bruny, then met with the director of the Bureau of Fraud & Corruption Prosecutions in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.
A source close to the D.A.’s office confirmed a meeting with Thatcher and Sloan took place but said no investigation into Bruny was pending. Laura Eimiller, the FBI’s media coordinator, said the bureau does not confirm or deny information provided to the organization unless it results in a court charge.
Two months later, Thatcher died.
Sloan, who spoke to her the night before her death, said she was slurring her words because her “tongue wasn’t working right.” Thatcher told her friend that a doctor told her she’d be OK and that she just needed to take the antibiotics she’d been prescribed.
“Her spirit was broken,” Sloan said. “She was afraid that her son was … going to lose everything he’d worked so hard for. That he wasn’t going to ever be able to do a real album again.”
In February 2024, Mosey officially went independent, signing a global distribution partnership with Cinq Music. “As a manager, it is rare to have a young artist that is truly gifted in creating hit records and is equally an amazing human being,” Bruny said in the press release announcing the news. Since then, Lil Mosey has released an EP and a few singles but none have brought him close to the commercial success of “Blueberry Faygo.” This summer, he has 10 North American concert dates lined up at venues that can hold between 450 and 1,500 people; tickets start at $31.
In one of Mosey’s recent Instagram posts, he starts out standing in front of a Rolls-Royce on that palm-tree-lined street in Beverly Hills that all influencers flock to. The April photo shoot continues: He’s flipping the bird. He’s holding a huge bag from Louis Vuitton.
But scroll down just three posts, and the tone shifts. He’s on the ground, seated next to a pay phone. “miss u mom this one’s for u,” say the words below the picture. It’s from November 2024 — just weeks after his mother’s passing — an announcement for his new single, “Call.” He wrote the song for Thatcher, its lyrics lamenting how he’d “give everything” to hear her voice again. Between his rap verses, there’s an interlude where he samples voicemail messages he’s saved from her.
“Hey, it’s me, your mom,” she says gently, barely audible. “Just checking in, hope everything’s good. Stay safe, be strong, love you. You know I’m here for you, always. Reach out anytime. ”
Times librarian Cary Schneider contributed to this report.
True is also seen kitted out in a £160 Monnalisa designer dress, a £40 bag from Hookd and a Pandora charm bracelet.
Her Rolex is identical to one worn by Kylie Jenner’s daughter Stormi, six.
Phil’s own watch collection includes a Rolex Sky Dweller and a Day Date.
The midfielder, who came on as a sub in yesterday’s FA Cup final defeat to Crystal Palace, loves spending his £200,000-a-week wages on his kids — Ronnie, five, True, and baby boy Phil Junior.
True was given a pony, Angus, at Christmas and is having riding lessons.
A source said: “True loves anything girly, sparkly — she loves fancy things. She is the little girl that wants for nothing.”
Phil recently moved the family to a mansion with a lake in the Cheshire countryside.
He was brought up on a council estate in nearby Edgeley, Stockport.
His mum, Claire, has revealed how much her son had changed recently.
She said: “The shocking thing is I hear him ordering salmon a lot now and he never used to eat that.”
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The Rolex is identical to one worn by Kylie Jenner’s daughter Stormi, six
