THE Wanted star Nathan Sykes has taken a swipe at bandmate Max George amidst bitter feud.
Nathan, 32,tied the knot with his girlfriend of six yearsCharlotte Burke earlier this month and broke his silence as to why his former pal was not in attendance.
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The Wanted star Nathan Sykes has taken a swipe at bandmate Max George following his wedding with Charlotte BurkeCredit: InstagramFeud rumours have recently reignited between Max and NathanCredit: Getty
Feud rumours have recently reignited inside the huge UK boyband following a wedding snub.
Nathan opted for an intimate celebration inviting just 61 of their closest friends and family, among them was The Wanted star Jay McGuinness.
But, Max was noticeably absent from Nathan’s wedding alongsideSiva Kaneswaran – Max and Kiva now have their own boyband The Wanted 2.0 together.
Following the wedding Nathan opened up about why Max and Siva weren’t in attendance, speaking to OK! he said: “We haven’t touched base recently, so I’m not sure they would have known the wedding date.
“With them being out in America at the time, we’ve not had the chance to [catch up], but I’m sure we will soon.”
He added: “We had a room full of people we’re comfortable with, so it was a really safe space and allowed us to relax.”
The band was first formed in 2009 by Max, Nathan, Jay, Siva and the late Tom Parker.
The group had massive hits between 2009 before it was disbanded in 2014, with plans to bring the boys back together.
But now it seems The Wanted aren’t reuniting, and Max and Nathan might not be talking at all.
Recently, fans on Reddit noticed that the pair unfollowed each other on Instagram, cutting off social media communication.
One wrote: “Not to sound parasocial or anything, but for some context, I have been a fan of The Wanted since 2012.
They added: “Couldn’t help but notice Max and Nathan unfollowed each other?
“I wonder if there’s any beef between them lol.”
Another fan replied to the Reddit thread, saying: “I’ve always suspected Max and Nathan had a falling out before they broke up the first time.”
A third said: “It’s a real shame because teenage me loved Nathan and Max’s interactions.
“I remember when Nathan used to comment on Max’s ig posts around 2 years ago.
“They haven’t followed each other in a very long time.
Nathan admitted him and Max ‘haven’t touched base recently’Credit: Shutterstock EditorialThe band was first formed in 2009 by Max, Nathan, Jay McGuiness, Siva Kaneswaran and the late Tom ParkerCredit: GettyMax George and Nathan Sykes unfollowed each other on InstagramCredit: Getty
ON Christmas Eve, 1956, a 15-year-old boy heads due south on a five-hour Greyhound Bus journey from his home in Hibbing, Minnesota.
Arriving in the state capital, Saint Paul, he meets up with two summer camp friends and they go to a shop on Fort Road called Terlinde Music.
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Folk star Bob Dylan snapped during an early photoshootCredit: SuppliedBob with Suze Rotolo, the girl on the cover of the Freewheelin’ albumCredit: UnknownAmerican folk singer-songwriter Bob singing during his first visit to Britain in 1962Credit: Redferns
Styling themselves as The Jokers, the fledgling trio record a rowdy, rudimentary 36-second rendition of R&B party hit Let The Good Times Roll and a handful of other covers.
The boy, with his chubby cheeks and hint of a rock and roller’s quiff, leads the way on vocals and piano.
Already enthralled by popular sounds of the day from Elvis Presley to Little Richard and the rest, he is now in proud possession of a DIY acetate — his first precious recording.
His name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, Bobby to his family and friends.
Less than seven years later, on October 26, 1963, as Bob Dylan, he takes to the stage in the manner of his folk hero Woody Guthrie, now adopting an altogether more lean and hungry look.
Acoustic guitar and harmonica are his only props as he holds an audience at New York City’s prestigious Carnegie Hall in the palms of his hands.
He performs his rallying cries that resonate to this day — Blowin’ In The Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.
He calls out the perpetrators of race-motivated killings with The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll and Only A Pawn In Their Game.
He dwells on matters of the heart by singing Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right and Boots Of Spanish Leather.
His 1956 schoolboy shindig and the Carnegie Hall concert, presented in full for the first time, bookend the latest instalment in Dylan’s endlessly captivating Bootleg Series.
Titled Through The Open Window, it showcases an artist in a hurry as he sets out on his epic career.
“I did everything fast,” he wrote in his memoir, Chronicles Vol.1, about his rapid transformation. “Thought fast, ate fast, talked fast and walked fast. I even sang my songs fast.”
But, as he continued: “I needed to slow my mind down if I was going to be a composer with anything to say.”
Among the myriad ways he achieved his stated aim, and then some, was by heading to the quiet surroundings of New York Public Library and avidly scouring newspapers on microfilm from the mid-1800s such as the Chicago Tribune and Memphis Daily Eagle, “intrigued by the language and the rhetoric of the times”.
He’d fallen under the spell of country music’s first superstar Hank Williams — “the sound of his voice went through me like an electric rod”.
Dylan affirmed that without hearing the “raw intensity” of songs by German anti-fascist poet-playwright Kurt Weill, most notably Pirate Jenny, he might not have written songs like The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.
Then there was Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson, who Dylan likened to “the scorched earth”. “There’s nothing clownish about him or his lyrics,” he said. “I wanted to be like that, too.”
‘Did everything fast’
We’ll hear more later about the man considered to be his primary early influence, Woody Guthrie, the “Dust Bowl Balladeer” who wielded a guitar emblazoned with the slogan “This machine kills fascists”.
And about leading Greenwich Village folkie Dave Van Ronk, known as the “Mayor Of MacDougal Street”, who had Dylan’s back from the moment he first saw him sing.
On two occasions in recent years, I’ve had the privilege of talking to Joan Baez, the unofficial “Queen” to Dylan’s “King” of the American folk scene in the early Sixties.
She championed him as he made his way, frequently bringing him on stage, their duets on his compositions like With God On Our Side revealing rare chemistry.
They also became lovers as Bob’s relationship with Suze Rotolo, the girl on the cover of the Freewheelin’ album, crumbled.
“He was a phenomenon,” Baez told me in typically forthright fashion. “I guess somebody said, ‘There’s this guy you gotta hear, he’s writing these incredible songs.’
The singer’s real name in his high-school yearbook in 1959Legendary musician Dylan performing on stageCredit: Unknown
“And he was. His talent was so constant that I was in awe.”
A leading figure in the civil rights movement, who marched with Martin Luther King, Baez added: “It was a piece of good luck that his music came along when it did. The songs said the things I wanted to say.”
But she finished that reflection by saying, tellingly: “And then he moved on.”
For Dylan, now 84, has forever been a restless soul, “moving on” to numerous incarnations — rock star, country singer, Born Again evangelist, Sinatra-style crooner, old-time bluesman, you name it.
In the closing paragraph of Chronicles, he admitted: “The folk music scene had been like a paradise that I had to leave, like Adam had to leave the garden.”
But it is that initial whirlwind period, 1956 to 1963, centred on bohemian Greenwich Village and the coffee shops where young performers got their breaks which forms Volume 18 of the Bootleg Series.
Through The Open Window is available in various formats including an eight-CD, 139-track version, and has been painstakingly pieced together by co-producers Sean Wilentz and Steve Berkowitz.
And it is from Wilentz, professor of American history at Princeton University and author of the liner notes accompanying this labour of love, that I have gleaned illuminating insights.
I can’t think of too many modern artists of his stature, if any, who developed that rapidly
Sean Wilentz
He begins with the arc of Dylan’s development, first as a performer, then as a songwriter, during his early years.
Wilentz says: “He came to Greenwich Village in 1961 with infinite ambition and mediocre skills. By the end of that year, he had learned how to enter a song, make it his own, and put it over, brilliantly.
“By the end of 1962, he had written songs that became immortal, above all Blowin’ In The Wind and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.
“By the time of the Carnegie Hall concert in 1963, the capstone to Through The Open Window, his songwriting had reached the level we can recognise, that would eventually lead to the Nobel Prize.
“And his performance style, for the thousands in that hall, was mesmeric. I can’t think of too many modern artists of his stature, if any, who developed that rapidly.”
One of the show’s striking aspects is the lively, often comical, between-song banter. (Yes, Dylan did talk effusively to his audiences back then. Not so much these days.)
In order to assemble Through The Open Window, Wilentz and Berkowitz had “more than 100 hours of material to draw on, maybe two or even three hundred”.
Their chief aim was to find a way to best illuminate “Bob Dylan’s development, mainly in Greenwich Village, as a performer and songwriter”.
But, adds Wilentz: “Several factors came into play — historical significance, rarity, immediacy and, of course, quality of performance.
‘Good taste in R&B’
“We hope, above all, that the collection succeeds at capturing the many overlapping levels — personal, artistic, political and more.”
Though noting Dylan’s inspirations, Woody, Elvis and the rest, Wilentz draws my attention to “a bit of free verse” written by Bob in 1962 called My Life In A Stolen Moment, which suggests nothing was off limits.
“Open up yer eyes an’ ears an’ yer influenced/an’ there’s nothing you can do about it.”
This is our cue to take a deep dive into the mix of unheard home recordings, coffeehouse and nightclub shows as well as studio outtakes from Dylan’s first three albums for Columbia Records — his self-titled debut, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin’.
Of the first track, that primitive take on Let The Good Times Roll, Wilentz says: “Dylan and the other two were obviously enthusiastic, and they had good taste in doo-wop and R&B.
“But if you listen closely, you can hear Dylan, on piano, calling things to order and pushing things along, the catalyst, the guy we know from other accounts who was willing to take more risks onstage.”
I ask Wilentz what he considers the most significant previously unreleased discoveries and he replies: “Most obviously Liverpool Gal from 1963, as it’s a song even the most obsessive Dylan aficionados have known existed but had never heard.
“He only recorded it once, at a friend’s party, and it’s stayed locked away on that tape until now.
Dylan was producing so much strong material that some of it was inevitably laid aside
Sean Wilentz
“While not Dylan at his peak, it’s a fine song. It’s significant lyrically, not least as testimony to his stay in London at the end of 1962 and the start of 1963. That stay had a profound effect on his songwriting, and one gets a glimpse of it here.”
Also included is near mythical Dylan song The Ballad Of The Gliding Swan, which he performed as “Bobby” in BBC drama Madhouse On Castle Street during his trip to Britain.
The only copy of the play set in a boarding house was junked by the Beeb in 1968 but this 63-second audio fragment survives.
Of even earlier recordings, Wilentz says: “I’m drawn to Ramblin’ Round.
“Although known (in his own words) as a Woody Guthrie jukebox, Dylan has never released a recording of himself performing a Guthrie song.
“Here he is, in an outtake from his first studio album, handling a Guthrie classic, and with a depth of feeling that shows why his earliest admirers found him so compelling.”
Wilentz considers other treasures: “There’s an entire 20-minute live set from Gerdes Folk City from April, 1962, concluding with Dylan’s first public performance of Blowin’ In The Wind.
“Then there are two tracks of singular historic importance, the first known recordings, both in informal settings, of two masterpieces, The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll and The Times They Are A-Changin’.”
If these versions shed fresh light on classics, let’s not forget the great Dylan songs that didn’t make it on to his albums, so great was the speed he was moving.
Does Wilentz find it staggering that songs like Let Me Die In My Footsteps and Lay Down Your Weary Tune were discarded?
“Yes and no,” he answers. “Yes, because these are powerful songs that were left largely unknown for years.
“No, because Dylan was producing so much strong material that some of it was inevitably laid aside.
‘Literary genius’
“Sometimes intervening factors kicked in. Take the four songs that, for business and censorship reasons, got cut from Freewheelin’ and replaced with four others.
“The album was actually better in its altered form, including songs like Girl From The North Country.
“But that’s how Let Me Die In My Footsteps was lost, along with a lesser-known song I love that we’re happy to include, Gamblin’ Willie’s Dead Man’s Hand, as well as an amazing performance of Rocks And Gravel.”
So, we’ve heard about songs but who were the key figures surrounding Dylan during his formative years?
Wilentz says: “Among the folk singers, Van Ronk most of all, and Mike Seeger, about whom he writes with a kind of awe in Chronicles.
“There was the crowd around Woody Guthrie, including Pete Seeger (‘Mike Seeger’s older brother,’ he calls him at one point) and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.”
He singles out producer John Hammond, “for signing him to Columbia Records and affirming his talent.
“But most important of all there was Suze Rotolo, who was a whole lot more, to Dylan and the rest of the world, than the girl on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.”
Finally, I ask Wilentz why the singer felt uncomfortable at being labelled king of the folk movement, “the voice of a generation” if you like.
“People misread Dylan from all sides,” he argues. “Never a protest singer in the mould of Guthrie or Seeger, even though he worshipped Guthrie and admired the left-wing old guard by the time he turned up.
“But Dylan wasn’t one of them, though he sympathised, in a humane way, with victims of injustice.”
Dylan’s work springs from a matrix that is emotional, filtered through his literary genius
Sean Wilentz
Wilentz believes the recent biopic A Complete Unknown, with Timothee Chalamet making a decent fist of portraying the young Dylan, “is a little misleading”.
He says: “It wasn’t Dylan’s ‘going electric’ that pissed off the old guard and their younger equivalent as much as his moving beyond left-wing political pieties.
“Hence the song My Back Pages, from 1964: ‘Ah but I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now.’”
Wilentz concludes: “Dylan’s work springs from a matrix that is emotional, filtered through his literary genius.
“It was impossible for someone like him, living through those two years (1962-63), not to respond to the politics in an artistic way.
“How, if you were Bob Dylan, could you not respond to the civil rights struggle, the killing of Medgar Evers (Only A Pawn In Their Game) or Hattie Carroll, as well as the spectre of nuclear annihilation?
“Dylan had a lot to say, but he was never going to be the voice of anyone but himself.”
Maybe he’d already explained himself on Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright:
Oct. 18 (UPI) — Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has apologized for backing President Donald Trump possibly sending the National Guard to San Francisco, where the tech company is based.
Benioff had complained about crime problems outside the company’s annual Dreamforce conference in downtown San Francisco from Tuesday through Thursday, which drew about 45,000 attendees.
“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff told The New York Times on Tuesday, noting he had the pay for several hundred off-duty law enforcement to help patrol the Moscone Center.
On Friday, he changed his stance.
“Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” Benioff wrote in a post on X in a post on X.
“My earlier comment came from an abundance of caution around the event, and I sincerely apologize for the concern it caused. It’s my firm belief that our city makes the most progress when we all work together in a spirit of partnership. I remain deeply grateful to Mayor [Daniel] Lurie, SFPD, and all our partners, and am fully committed to a safer, stronger San Francisco.”
The Trump administration already has deployed the National Guard to Portland, Ore.; Memphis, Tenn., and Chicago in a crackdown on illegal immigration and crime. Lower courts blocked the deployments of the troops.
On Tuesday, Trump told in the Oval Office that “we have great support in San Francisco” for sending troops to the city, apparently a reference to Benioff. He urged FBI Director Kash Patel to make San Francisco “next” for deployment.
Benioff’s suggestion was condemned by politicians, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, investors and those associated with the company.
Newsom, who was mayor of San Francisco, is a friend of Benioff and appeared at last year’s company convention.
More than 180 Salesforce workers, alumni and community members wrote an open letter on Friday that was published online. They said his comments have “revealed a troubling hypocrisy.”
“Salesforce was built on empowering communities — not deploying the National Guard into them,” they wrote. “Last week, that’s exactly what you endorsed.’
The letter added: “Walking back your words doesn’t undo the damage.”
Startup investor Ron Conway resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation on Thursday. Conway told Benioff in an email that their “values were no longer aligned,” according to the New York Times.
Conway donated around $500,000 to at least two funds tied to Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful 2024 presidential election campaign.
Benioff has donated to both political parties but has supported Harris, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for president. He attended a state dinner by King Charles for Trump at Windsor Castle in England on Sept. 15.
Benioff, who acquired Time magazine in 2018, has a net worth of $8.8 billion, ranking 381st in the world, according to Forbes.
Laurene Powell Jobs, a pre-eminent philanthropist, criticized Benioff for his remarks.
“When wealth becomes a substitute for participation, giving is reduced to performance art — proof of virtue, a way to appear magnanimous while still demanding ownership,” she wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “That’s the quiet corruption corroding modern philanthropy: the ability to give as a license to impose one’s will. It’s a kind of moral laundering, where so-called benevolence masks self-interest.”
Conservatives have rallied behind the Salesforce CEO.
Venture capitalist David Sacks, who is now Trump’s artificial intelligence and crypto czar, wrote on X : “Dear Marc @Benioff, if the Democrats don’t want you, we would be happy for you to join our team. “Cancel culture is over, and we are the inclusive party.”
Benioff has previously complained about crime in the city. In 2023, he threatened to relocate Dreamforce to Las Vegas over concerns about drug use, crime and homelessness.
Salesforce has attempted to get on the good side of the Trump administration as the company seeks regulatory approval for its proposed $8 billion acquisition of Informatica, an AI-powered cloud data management company.
Salesforce a few weeks ago announced a new line of business, Missionforce, for more revenue from defense, intelligence and aerospace agencies.
The New York Times also reported that Salesforce has offered its services to increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s capabilities.
Salesforce is a cloud-based software company founded in 1999 by Benioff, a former Oracle executive.
The company has a market capitalization of $238 billion with $38 billion in revenue in 2025 and 76,453 employees. The public company is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
A former Strictly Come Dancing professional has revealed they wanted to return to the BBC One show after leaving in 2012 and being a part of the show for seven series.
A former Strictly Come Dancing professional has admitted they wanted to return(Image: BBC)
Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Vincent Simone has revealed he wanted to return to the BBC One show but “it didn’t work out”. The dancer joined the show in 2006 for the fourth series and did seven series before leaving it behind in 2012.
Now he’s opened up about his exit as he said: “The year I left Strictly Come Dancing, there were going to be big changes.
“Bruce Forsyth was leaving, and the show was moving from Shepherd’s Bush where we were there for seven years, and we were moving to Elstree Studios, which was a big change. It got to a point where I got to the final, and although I didn’t win, I was fully satisfied with how I’d done in the show.”
However, Vincent only intended on taking a short break from the show but he got to busy doing his other work that it didn’t end up materialising.
He continued to Daily Star: “Ideally, what I wanted was to take a year or two out of the show, and then to come back, but we all know that’s rare.
“If I could’ve had that chance to leave Strictly for a few years and then come back, that would’ve been ideal. I would’ve gone back, but those years after Strictly, I was fully committed to West End shows and my own shows.
“Then I went onto I’m A Celebrity, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I was on Strictly. My career in touring and performing has made me feel very blessed.”
During his first series, Vincent was partnered with EastEnders actress Louisa Lytton and the pair made it all the way to the final four and were eliminated two weeks before the final.
The following year, the dancer was paired with actress Stephanie Beacham with the two being eliminated on week two but in 2008 he made a triumphant return when he came second with S Club 7 singer Rachel Stevens.
His next partner was EastEnders actress Natalie Cassidy, who he came fifth with, followed by his partnership with Felicity Kendal resulting in them being voted off in week seven.
In 2011, it was disappointment all around as he and Conservative party politician Edwina Currie were the first pair to be eliminated from the competition.
In Vincent’s final year, the performer and his partner, Tracy Beaker star Dani Harmer got eliminated a week before the final, ending their run in fourth place.
After quitting the show, he and dance partner Flavia Cacace continued to perform with stage shows and live tours.
In 2013, he took part on the thirteenth series of I’m A Celebrity, arriving as a late entrant to camp with actress Annabel Giles.
He finished in tenth place, being the third celebrity to leave in a double elimination with Matthew Wright.
The current series of the BBC One show is airing at the moment, with celebrities including Vicky Pattison, Alex Kingston, Amber Davies and Chris Robshaw attempting to lift the glitterball trophy.
The Apprentice star Thomas Skinner and his partner Amy Dowden became the first pair to leave the competition after landing in the bottom two with Chris and Nadiya Bychkova.
In his exit interview with Tess Daly, he said: “Thank you, Amy – sorry that we haven’t done too good, ’cause you’re a different class.
“I’ve never danced before and my stay was short, but Amy’s amazing. It’s been great fun and I’ve enjoyed it. I can’t really dance that well but I’ve had fun!”
Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight at 6:05pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
