Category Archives: Celebrity

Hollywood Down Under: stars flock from US to film in Covid-free Australia

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Blessed with sunny weather, diverse locations and a ready-made film industry, Sydney and the Gold Coast have become movie powerhouses

On a warmish Wednesday evening early in the year, Paul Mescal was celebrating his birthday and everybody seemed to know. The Irish actor, famous for his neckchain and his leading role in Normal People, was in Sydney, Australia, for a new film, and the word was spreading. He was photographed running in Centennial Park. He was sighted at Tamarama Beach. He popped into an inner-city pub.

But on the list of stars now working in Australia, Mescal – in Sydney for a musical film adaptation of Carmen – is comfortably mid-level. Thanks to its relative freedom from Covid-19 and associated restrictions, Australia – blessed with diverse locations, sunny weather and a ready-made film infrastructure – has become Hollywood Down Under.

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Allen v Farrow is pure PR. Why else would it omit so much?

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The new HBO documentary in which Mia and Dylan Farrow revisit their 1992 allegation against Woody Allen claims to be an even-handed investigation. But its failure to present the facts makes it feel more like activism

“HBO Doc About Woody Allen & Mia Farrow Ignores Mia’s 3 Dead Kids, Her Child Molester Brother, Other Family Tragedies” was the headline on one US showbiz site, above its review of the four-part documentary, Allen v Farrow, about the continuing battle between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, now entering its fourth decade. But this review was very much an outlier. In the vast main, reaction to the strongly anti-Allen series has been overwhelmingly positive, with Buzzfeed describing it as a “nuanced reckoning” and Entertainment Weekly comparing it to the recent documentaries about Michael Jackson and Jeffrey Epstein. This reaction is more of a reflection of the public’s feelings towards Allen – particularly in the US – than of the documentary, which sets itself up as an investigation but much more resembles PR, as biased and partial as a political candidate’s advert vilifying an opponent in election season.

Related: Allen v Farrow review – effective docuseries on allegations of abuse

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Lady Gaga’s bulldogs returned unharmed after kidnapping

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Dogs were dropped off at a police station in Los Angeles, while dog walker shot in the attack is recovering

Two French bulldogs belonging to Lady Gaga that were stolen at gunpoint earlier this week have been recovered unharmed, police in Los Angeles have said.

A woman brought the dogs to the LAPD’s Olympic community police station on Friday evening, said Jonathan Tippett, commanding officer of the robbery-homicide division.

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Britney Spears: another pop princess trapped in a man-made fairytale

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One contributor is notably absent from the new film about Britney: herself. But from Rihanna to Beyoncé to Taylor Swift, female stars have always struggled to tell their stories

In the closing song of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, we are invited to ponder the question: “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” It is a powerful message about legacy and ownership, as relevant to any modern public figure as it is about one of America’s founding fathers.

I think about this lyric whenever my mind strays to Britney Spears, who has found her life back under the microscope following the release of the documentary Framing Britney Spears. The story the film chooses to tell is contextualised by what we now understand as the rampant misogyny of the mid-to-late 00s, painting an empathic portrait of a woman who had not previously found much sympathy in the mainstream.

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Perfect storm: have the influencers selling a dream lost their allure?

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Social media stars, already under fire for trips to Dubai in lockdown, are now involved in a row over Instagram posts

Makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari started her hashtag #filterdrop in summer 2020. A social media campaign to discourage influencers promoting beauty products by using filters to exaggerate their effect, it paid off last week when the Advertising Standards Authority banned two tanning brands from using misleading filters on Instagram Stories. The ruling means that in future all use of filters will be more tightly controlled – and, so the theory goes, more “natural” content likely to be seen on social media.

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‘I document America’s strange beauty’: the photography of My Name Is Earl’s Jason Lee

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He played a redemption-seeking redneck on TV, but lately the actor has found solace off-screen, travelling with his camera. He talks about slackers, the Mallrats sequel and breezing into one-horse towns

Jason Lee knew he was in trouble when he stepped on the set. The year was 1992, Sonic Youth were at their peak and he was starring as a doomed skateboarder in their latest video. As a music obsessed, pro skateboarder with acting aspirations, he felt he had a point to prove. To add more pressure, it was for the song 100% – the band’s classic ode to a murdered Black Flag roadie – and the video was being co-directed by one of his skateboarding friends (some guy called Spike Jonze).

“I was really trying my hardest to focus,” says Lee. “I was like pretending to be Robert De Niro on the set, really trying to get into it and make it count and make it real and believable.”

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The Capote Tapes: inside the scandal ignited by Truman’s explosive final novel

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He partied with high society America but caused outrage when he spilled their secrets. Ebs Burnough talks us through his new film about Answered Prayers – the ‘smart, salacious’ novel Capote never finished

When Truman Capote died in 1984, he left the remains of a novel he had been hatching for nearly two decades, and talking about for almost as long. Answered Prayers, the story of a budding writer screwing his way through polite society, was intended to be Capote’s most explosive achievement. He likened it to a deadly weapon. “There’s the handle, the trigger, the barrel, and, finally, the bullet,” he told People magazine. “And when that bullet is fired from the gun, it’s going to come out with a speed and power like you’ve never seen – wham!” Having bragged about the book for years, all he had to do now was write it.

A contract was signed in 1966, but advance chapters published in Esquire magazine nine years later proved to be far below the standard of his defining successes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the “non-fiction novel” In Cold Blood. There was a cost to his social reputation as well as his literary one. As soon as the socialites and wealthy wives with whom he had mingled happily for years – including Slim Keith, Babe Paley and Gloria Vanderbilt, whom he called his “swans” – saw how casually he had spilled their most intimate secrets, those friendships were dead. Capote hadn’t bitten the hand that fed him. He’d gnawed it off at the wrist.

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Calling all billionaires: here’s how to keep your superyacht Covid-free

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As the rich and famous isolate on the seas, a new catamaran is designed to keep the virus out

It is a problem not many us have to consider: how to ensure your multimillion dollar superyacht remains a coronavirus-free zone despite taking on board crew from around the world.

But for the billionaire owners of floating luxury homes there is now a solution – a very expensive one, naturally. An Australian naval architecture firm is launching a new double-hulled support vessel, in which new crew and guests can isolate while they await coronavirus test results from onboard medical staff.

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‘I did hate TV’: Selina Scott on Trump, Prince Andrew, Frank Bough and the BBC

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She was one of television’s biggest names, before giving it all up to live on a farm. She talks about her friendship with Princess Diana, the horror of tabloid harassment – and the extraordinary sexism she faced

Selina Scott has come in from the cold. She lights a fire and makes herself a cup of tea – black, no sugar. The former “golden girl” of the BBC lives on a farm in North Yorkshire with a couple of dogs, a handful of rare belted galloway cattle, a waddle of ducks and swans, and the odd otter. The room looks dark and bleak, and the internet isn’t working well, so we struggle to Zoom. “I’m going to move you into another room.” Scott still pronounces room aristocratically as “rum”, but her voice is different from the old days. Back then, it was more of a stately caress, offset by a youthful giggle. Today, her voice is deeper, more flinty, though still with a hint of grandeur. The Yorkshire roots of her childhood have re-emerged and planted themselves firmly in the peaty soil.

It’s 40 years since she made her name presenting News at 10, followed by BBC Breakfast Time, The Clothes Show, The Selina Scott Show for NBC, the magazine show West 57th for CBS and a brief stint at Sky. Scott wasn’t any old presenter. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Princess Diana (or, as she prefers it, the younger Diana bore an uncanny resemblance to her) and, like Diana, she became the nation’s sweetheart. Like Diana, she was hounded by the press – in a way that no other journalist has been. And like Diana she decided to walk away from it all at the peak of her fame. Unlike Diana, she lived to tell the tale.

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Hilaria Baldwin speaks out amid accusations she faked being Spanish

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Baldwin accuses critics of ‘misrepresenting’ her, and addresses her background and that cucumber ‘brain fart’ incident

Hilaria Baldwin has accused critics of “misrepresenting” her amid allegations she spent years faking being Spanish.

Speaking out in a New York Times interview on Wednesday, Baldwin addressed the controversy surrounding her heritage after it emerged she was born in Boston, not Spain, and was originally named Hillary.

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Breaking point: why Tom Cruise is living a mission impossible

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Analysis: A leaked recording of the movie star yelling at crew on his latest blockbuster is not evidence of tyranny, but the extraordinary strain of keeping the huge undertaking afloat

It is a lonely business, being a Tom Cruise fan in 2020. The heel lifts, the way his arms pump when he runs (nobody runs like Tom Cruise), his Dorian Gray looks: I love Cruise for all of it, and yet I’m aware this is a deeply unfashionable opinion, and one I’m often called on to defend at dinner parties. And so it befalls me, as Cruise’s solitary champion, to step to his aid now, like Ethan Hunt in a tuxedo taking on a posse of earpiece-wearing hitmen, as behind him an orchestra plays Nessun Dorma.

Related: Top bun: Tom Cruise's cake-mailing habit proves he's a real Christmas miracle | Stuart Heritage

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Top bun: Tom Cruise’s cake-mailing habit proves he’s a real Christmas miracle | Stuart Heritage

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Rosie O’Donnell, Jimmy Fallon and Graham Norton are just a few of the famous recipients of the ‘Cruise cake’, a white chocolate coconut ring which might as well be a halo

Tom Cruise follows me on Twitter. Until now, I have been relatively proud of this fact, even though he follows tens of thousands of people, and only tweets three times a year, and his account is probably run by his staff, and he wouldn’t actually be able to tell you what Twitter was if you held a gun to his head. Regardless, I was proud.

But now I feel like a failure, because Tom Cruise has never sent me a cake. And it turns out that all Tom Cruise does is send cakes to people. According to Yahoo, every year he orders more than 100 white chocolate coconut bundt cakes from Doan’s Bakery in Woodland Hills, California, and sends them to his famous friends. Rosie O’Donnell gets one. Kirsten Dunst gets one. Jimmy Fallon gets one. James Corden gets one. Graham Norton gets one, and his staff eat it without telling him. Henry Cavill called it “the most decadent, the most amazing cake”. Barbara Walters once ate hers live on television, in a power move as yet unmatched by any mortal human.

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George Clooney: Why we owe our domestic bliss to … Boris Johnson

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Row over Parthenon marbles deflected attention from secret courtship with wife Amal, star reveals

George Clooney will not be sending Boris Johnson a Christmas card, but he may send a thank-you note to No 10 – along with a comb, he told the Observer this weekend.

The Hollywood film star and director has recognised he owes part of his current domestic contentment and job satisfaction to a strange run-in he had with the prime minister early in 2014, while Clooney was secretly courting his future wife, Amal.

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Tina Turner: ‘When I was in the zone, it was like I was flying’

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She was a rock’n’roll powerhouse who electrified audiences worldwide. As Tina Turner releases a guide to happiness, she talks to playwright V (formerly Eve Ensler) about how she found the strength to overcome illness, abuse and tragedy

The first time I experienced Tina Turner in the flesh, I was a 16-year-old hippy chick doused in patchouli oil. I didn’t just see and hear Ms Turner sing Proud Mary at the Fillmore East in New York City – I felt her in every cell of my teenage body. I was transfixed by the ecstasy of her thunderous hips and legs, the vibrating canopy of her shaking fringe, the irrefutable bidding of her sultry, raw voice.

She was female sexuality fully embodied and unleashed. She catalysed the same in me and in multitudes across the planet, selling more than 200m records in her lifetime. The queen of rock’n’roll seemed as much shaman as singer. I knew instinctively that she had suffered abuse and pain. We survivors have a kind of radar.

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Elliot Page: star of X-Men and Juno announces he is transgender

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Actor takes aim at transphobic politicians and ‘those with a massive platform who continue to spew hostility’, saying they ‘have blood on [their] hands’

Elliot Page, who rose to fame as the lead in teen pregnancy comedy Juno as Ellen Page, has announced he is transgender.

“Hi friends,” he wrote on a variety of social media platforms, “I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot.”

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Map of the soul: how BTS rewrote the western pop rulebook

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Contrary to their dismissive framing as manufactured robots, South Korea’s BTS use social media, documentary and storytelling to make themselves into profoundly human stars

BTS’s leader RM looks up from under a black baseball cap, then stares back down at his hands. “Doing the promotional interviews, [I kept saying], ‘Music truly transcends every barrier.’ But even while I was saying it I questioned myself if I indeed believe it.”

It’s late September, and the rapper is confiding in over one million fans live from his Seoul studio. His “complex set of feelings” about the explosive, record-breaking success of Dynamite – the first fully English-language single from the South Korean megastars – is not the celebration you’d expect from a band that just topped the US Billboard Hot 100, the first K-pop act to do so. But this kind of frank, unfiltered conversation is exactly what their global “Army” fanbase love: BTS’s candid social media presence has included their fans in every step of their artistic journey, and, as they release new album Be this week, has made them the biggest pop group on the planet.

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‘She made music jump into 3D’: Wendy Carlos, the reclusive synth genius

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She went platinum by plugging Bach into 20th-century machines, and was soon working with Stanley Kubrick. But prejudice around her gender transition pushed Wendy Carlos out of sight

This summer, an 80-year-old synthesiser pioneer suddenly appeared online. She had been silent for 11 years, but now something had appeared that she just wouldn’t tolerate. “Please be aware there’s a purported ‘biography’ on me just released,” wrote Wendy Carlos on the homepage of her 16-bit-friendly website, a Siamese cat and a synthesiser behind her portrait. “No one ever interviewed me [for it], nor anyone I know,” she went on. “Aren’t there new, more interesting targets?”

Given that Carlos is arguably the most important living figure in the history of electronic music, it’s remarkable that Amanda Sewell’s Wendy Carlos: A Biography is the first book about her. This is the musician who pushed Robert Moog to perfect his first analogue synthesiser, from which pop, prog, electronica and film music flourished. Her smash-hit 1968 album Switched-On Bach made the Moog internationally famous and became the second classical album ever to go platinum in the US. Then came her extraordinary soundtracks for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron. She made an ambient album five years before Brian Eno did, and jumped from analogue machines to do leading work in digital synthesis, but worried that her status as one of the first visible transgender artists in the US would overshadow it.

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The fall of Johnny Depp: how the world’s most beautiful movie star turned very ugly

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In the 1990s, he was a different kind of film star – eloquent, artistic and cool. But this week, with the loss of his court case against the Sun, the dream has decisively soured

Johnny Depp is “a wife-beater”. This is the verdict of the UK courts. Just writing that sentence feels genuinely shocking, and yet, by now perhaps, it should not. For a start, the allegation that he was physically abusive to his ex-wife Amber Heard emerged more than four years ago, after she applied for a temporary restraining order against him following their divorce, citing domestic abuse. It should also not be a shock, given how many other hugely famous men have been accused of abusing women. Sean Connery was alleged to have beaten his first wife and frequently defended hitting women. His death this weekend sparked online arguments about how much the coverage should focus on the professional achievements of a man who repeatedly insisted it was fine to hit women, “if the woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually”, as he said in 1965.

But Depp is a very different figure from Connery. The latter represented alpha masculinity and aggressive sexuality. No one ever said it explicitly, but Connery’s defences for beating women fit in, on some level, with his image, and so that side of him was never going to be a problem with his audience. Depp, however, represented something else. He sued the Sun for defamation when it described him as “a wife-beater”, something Connery would never have done, and it’s also why for a certain kind of fan (me), this feels like the death of yet another childhood hero.

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Joni Mitchell: ‘I’m a fool for love. I make the same mistake over and over’

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As she releases a box set of her earliest recordings, in a rare interview Mitchell talks about life before fame, the correct way to sing her songs – and her long struggle to walk and talk again after an aneurysm

“I was lying in bed last night thinking about getting a cat,” says Joni Mitchell. It’s an early summer Sunday, and she’s sitting in her backyard patio, nicknamed Tuscany. Behind her a bird feeder is busy with hungry visitors. “And this guy shows up at the gate around midnight, meowing.”

A light-brown kitten with long white paws, only a few months old, leans contentedly against her shoulder. “I hope nobody comes to claim him,” she confides softly. They’re fast friends. Nearby Marcy Gensic, Mitchell’s longtime friend and associate, mentions they’ve papered the neighbourhood with lost notices. No calls yet. So with our midnight visitor, tentatively named Puss ’n Boots, tucked in the lap of this treasured artist, Mitchell is here to discuss the new set of early recordings she never intended to release: Joni Mitchell Archives Vol 1: The Early Years (1963-1967). For years she doubted their place in the revered canon of her carefully curated albums. “Some of the melodies are beautiful,” she told me in an interview in 2004, “but they’re very ingenue-y.” She seemed almost wistful. “God, they’re so vulnerable in these tough times. They’re like some ancient world.”

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‘I no longer participate’: Dutch celebrities rebel over Covid constraints

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Rapper Famke Louise joined by Bizzy and others refusing to follow government advice

They are young, famous and refusing to abide by the coronavirus restrictions. A group of Dutch celebrities have triggered both a sizeable backlash and a national debate after breaking cover on social media with the hashtag #ikdoenietmeermee, (I no longer participate).

The central figure is the rapper and model Famke Louise, 21, who told her 1 million Instagram followers she was no longer willing to go along with the growing number of restrictions designed to slow the spread of the virus. “Only together can we regain control of the government,” she said. “I no longer participate. Free the people.”

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