Category: 5. Entertainment

Rebel Wilson has recently written a heartfelt note on her late grandmother, who dies at age 95 this weekend.

The Senior Year actress took to Instagram on July 27 and posted a short video featuring images of her late grandma and family, including wife Ramona Agruma.

Rebel penned a lengthy caption, remembering her grandmother, saying, “Goodbye to my incredible Grandma Gar – the BEST grandmother ever.”

Pitch Perfect actress revealed that her late grandmother’s movie was The Wizard of Oz because “when she was a young girl she was banned by her father from seeing it for being “naughty”. But years later, she finally got to watch it”.

Recalling how her grandmother would “keep a scrapbook of news clippings” of her career, Rebel mentioned, “She was so proud and even last night was telling paramedics about me as she was being taken to hospital – recounting her glorious holiday on the Queen Mary that I had given her as a present when I had started making it big in Hollywood.”

“When I was 11, she took me and my sister to America. It was one of the best weeks of my entire life,” remarked the 45-year-old.

The Deb actress continued, “We took her on SPACE MOUNTAIN at Disneyland saying ‘it’s not that scary Gar!’ and she screamed the entire way down holding on for dear life.”

Leaving behind incredible legacy, Rebel went on, “I’m glad her last ‘big’ outing was to our wedding at the Opera House.”

Before concluding, the actress further said that her grandmother “endured so much in her life and was always so kind and sweet”.

“To me she is a Queen and I proudly carry her royal name of Elizabeth. Love you Gar and love to all my family at this very sad time,” she added.

Wicked star Marissa Bode has revealed which genre of film she wants to do next.

During a new interview with Variety, Marissa was asked if Hollywood celebs recognize her from Wicked at any of the award ceremonies and other events she’s attended since the film came out.

She recalled, “At the Oscars, I was just chilling and Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff came up to me to say hello. There were like, ‘We loved Wicked.’ “

“I loved ‘The Substance.’ I have forever been a believer that there needs to be more horror nominations and more of those type of movies at the Oscars,” she added.

When asked if she’d like to do a horror movie, the actress shared, “I would love to do horror. I love horror. I really love blood and guts.”

Marissa, who plays Nessarose Thropp in Wicked and its sequel Wicked: For Good, has seen a sharp rise in her career due to the role.

The actress was asked how the last year played out, after Wicked go nominations at major awards like Oscars, SAGs, Golden Globes, and more.

Marissa Bode shared, “This last year has been a whirlwind in a lot of ways, but I think I’ve done a really good job with resting when I need to and being around my closest friends and family when I need to, to help keep me grounded.”

Youthful and rebellious is how Alexander Gavrylyuk describes Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1, the work with which he will mark his debut appearance with the Australian Chamber Orchestra on Friday.

“It’s a work where he fights to be heard,” says the Australian-based virtuoso, speaking from a waterside cafe a stone’s throw away from the ACO’s Walsh Bay home. “One gets a feeling that it’s been written by someone cornered who is trying to remain an individual in resistance to the system.”

And yet, bleak it is not. There is much humour to be found in the notoriously neurotic yet brilliant composer’s early work, Gavrylyuk says: “Laughter through clenched teeth, so to speak.”

Like Shostakovich, Gavrylyuk quietly rejected the strictures of a regimented Soviet-era approach to artistry, but at a much earlier age. Coming to Australia as a teenager only seven years after the iron curtain fell, the sense of light, space and personal freedom he instantly experienced on arriving in Sydney was exhilarating.

The Ukraine he had left behind was “still very closed, still very Soviet” in most ways, he says; a country where gifted children were drilled with military precision and concert pianists were “produced like in a factory”.

“It was a place where you did not express yourself,” he recalls. “You followed the path that was given to you by the hierarchy, and that in itself is completely opposite to what music is all about – the freedom of expression, the freedom of creation.”

Practising for up to 10 hours a day, Gavrylyuk gave his first concert performance at the age of nine. His fondest childhood memories are those of spending rare breaks away from the keyboard, such as visiting the countryside with his grandmother.

Gavrylyuk was only 13 when he arrived in Australia as part of a teenage troupe of gifted young pianists offered full scholarships by the privately run Australian Institute of Music. The teenager and his four young Ukrainian peers dazzled audiences at school with their precocious virtuosity. At 15, Gavrylyuk returned to his homeland to collect first prize and the gold medal at the Vladimir Horowitz competition. By the age of 21 he had achieved a trifecta, having won the Hamamatsu and Arthur Rubinstein international piano competitions.

Back then, winning was everything, and competitions were considered a stress-riddled rite of passage. Much like its athletes, musically gifted prodigies were held up to the capitalist world as symbols of Soviet superiority. But in many cases, Gavrylyuk says, the system churned out “broken individuals”.

“[Competitions] open doors, they can be really helpful. But it is unfortunate to see music as a competitive activity,” he says. “Music is a uniting force … if one sees it as a festival, rather than a competition, then that is wonderful.”

In any Gavrylyuk performance, there remains plenty of old Russian school-style keyboard pyrotechnics – but as the Times’ Anna Picard wrote in her review of his BBC Proms performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3 in 2017, there is much more to him than just technical brilliance: “It is emotionally gripping, structurally thoughtful, and deeply musical,” she wrote of the performance.

As Classical Source music critic Peter Reed put it, Gavrylyuk’s “presence harks back to the old, formal Russian style of pianism – white tie and tails, impeccable stage manners, and plenty of old-fashioned performance histrionics – eyes gazing heavenwards, rapt expressions, the pianist as artwork – with playing that brings together grandeur, nobility, dazzling virtuosity and a sublime sense of style”.

Here’s a taste of Gavrylyuk playing “the Rach 3” – a famously difficult piece which was popularised after the release of the film Shine.

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Gavrylyuk considers the ACO’s decision to pair Shostakovich with the joyful ode to jazz-era New York, Rhapsody in Blue – George Gershwin’s self-described homage to the “musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot” – a masterstroke in programming.

“On one side you have this darker perspective from the Soviet era … and then you have this wonderful exuberance, the swagger … the lack of constraints, lack of regulation, lack of anything really,” he says.

Despite his global career and 13 years living in Germany and the Netherlands, Gavrylyuk, his wife and their two daughters have called Sydney home since making the decision to “wait the storm out” during the pandemic. “But we got too attracted to Sydney. We loved it here too much, and the girls started schooling here, so we’re staying.”

Now approaching middle age, Gavrylyuk continues to set himself new challenges, including widening his focus beyond the Russian repertoire.

“I’m so fortunate to have a huge repertoire but I am passionate about diversifying,” he says. “There’s always a stigma attached to a name like mine to play Russian composers’ works … well, maybe I shouldn’t use such a strong term. But it’s definitely something that comes with having my background.”

Khloe Kardashian was on cloud nine at Destiny’s Child’s reunion show.

Kardashian’s excitement was well suited as the reunion was the first time the iconic group reunited in a decade.

Beyoncé was joined onstage by her groupmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams for the final night of the Cowboy Carter Tour on Saturday night (July 26) at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

During their performance of three and a half minutes, Kelly and Michelle even got solo singing parts.

The group performed their hits Lose My Breath, Bootylicious, and Beyonce’s Energy.

Khloe gushed over the performance in her Instagram stories, sharing clips of the performance.

She wrote, “Come on ladies! Queens!!!” over a clip of the trio working the stage expertly.

The mom-of-two wrote, “I am am not ok” over another clip of the trio, who were clad in golden outfits for the show and closed the performance by posing one by one.

The last time Destiny’s Child performed was in 2018 during Beyoncé’s Coachella performance. They also famously reunited for Beyoncé‘s Super Bowl halftime show in 2013.

Onstage reunions aside, the trio met former band members LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett backstage at Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in 2023. 

Survivors of coercive control are being unfairly criminalised in England and punished by a justice system that should be protecting them, research has found.

A report from the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) drew on the experiences of seven women who were criminalised because of their abusive partners. They include a police officer who was convicted of misconduct in public office and lost her job after her controlling ex-boyfriend, also a police officer, coerced her into giving him her password into the police computer system, and a woman who was prosecuted for theft and fraud after her abusive and controlling partner used her bank account and phone number to sell stolen caravans.

Cara* was arrested alongside her abuser after police raided their house searching for drugs, and found a large amount of cannabis, which belonged to her then-partner. She left the relationship after the police raid, but was forced to come face-to-face with him in court.

“It’s taken every ounce of strength that I had to actually leave him,” she said. “And then a few months later, in the new year, I got a charge sheet through the post.

“One of the reasons why they’d had access to the house was because he had assaulted me, and they’d come in and they’d seen that there was all sorts of other criminal activity going on in there,” she added.

“And then I had gone and left and got a restraining order, and that counted for nothing. I was just so completely in shock, my stomach felt like it fell out of my body.

“For the next six months, I was fraught with worry. I was struggling to sleep, I was struggling to work, I was struggling to eat. I was absolute skin and bone, I lost so much weight because all I could think about was the fact that I was going to prison, for something I hadn’t done because of the fact that I’d just been involved with this man.”

It was only at her third court hearing, at a crown court, where she was forced to sit beside her abuser in the dock, that the case against Cara was dropped. “It was so frightening, I was absolutely terrified,” she said. “There was nothing between us, nothing to stop him from getting to me.

“I had to just be really strong and sit there and look directly at the judge and just not move my gaze,” she added. “And I could hear him at the side of me, making digs, saying, ‘You’ll have to get back with me, or we’ll both go down together.’”

Jane*, a former lawyer, was reported to the police by her ex-partner after she started to get notifications through on a banking app from an account he had set up after their relationship ended. She disclosed this to him via a solicitor, and he reported her to the police.

She had reported him to the police for coercive control in the past, but still, the criminal prosecution against Jane was taken forward, until it reached the crown court, where it was eventually dropped after the CPS decided it was not in the public interest.

“It absolutely has made me, as an ex-lawyer, totally ashamed of our system, every system, civil, family, criminal, CPS,” Jane said. “I’m angry, because I just think, ‘how can a system that you trust [do this]?’

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“I blindly trusted in the police. I trusted them and they failed and they failed and they failed time, time, time again – and utter ridiculous failures.”

CWJ has made 11 recommendations for reform, including the introduction of an effective defence for victims of coercive control who are pressured into offending. It has also called for the introduction of a joint police and CPS protocol for gathering, passing on, and taking account of evidence of coercive control where someone suspected of an offence may also be a victim.

“At a time when our criminal justice system is under great strain and many victims are unprotected and do not get justice, it is shocking that limited resources are used to prosecute such victims,” Harriet Wistrich, solicitor and CEO of CWJ, said.

“A more informed and intelligent approach is urgently needed to ensure criminal justice action targets those that actually present a danger.”

* Names have been changed

Elaine Paige
(Photo: Christie Goodwin)

Olivier-winning actress Elaine Paige is giving Broadway.com listeners a chance to hear her BBC Radio 2 show Elaine Paige on Sunday. This week, Paige plays a sunny selection of show tunes sung by your favorite onstage parents, from Mamma Mia!‘s Donna Sheridan to Aaron Burr, sir. Plus, the latest stage and screen news and your Break A Leg messages. Catch the full episode by clicking the link below!

David Bailey’s Box of Pin-Ups of 1965 was a defining portrait of the swinging 60s, immortalising some of the most fashionable stars of the era, from John Lennon and Mick Jagger to Jean Shrimpton and Susan Murray.

Now the original proof copy of this landmark portfolio of 36 portraits by one of Britain’s foremost photographers has come to light for the first time. It is the personal working proof copy of David Hillman, the influential graphic designer who went on to give the Guardian a groundbreaking redesign in 1988.

In 1965, Hillman co-conceived the Box of Pin-Ups with the magazine editor and political cartoonist Mark Boxer. This copy, in near-mint condition, was the finished concept presented to Bailey for final approval before printing.

Its existence was unknown until now, having remained in Hillman’s private collection. In an accompanying signed letter confirming its authenticity, he writes: “Mark, a friend of David Bailey’s, came up with the idea for a box of pin-ups – an idea Bailey was enthusiastic about. Bailey selected the photographs, and Mark tasked me with designing and managing the project under his direction.”

The edition, a loose portfolio within a box, was published originally in 1965 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Plans for a second edition were dropped after Lord Snowdon – a distinguished photographer and sitter in the box, and Princess Margaret’s husband – objected to its inclusion of the Kray twins, the notorious East End gangsters. The controversy of glamorising criminals reportedly cancelled plans for a US edition.

The first edition is so sought-after by collectors that copies have sold for about £20,000, although one example, in which every portrait had been signed by Bailey, far exceeded that.

This unique proof is priced at £25,000 and is being offered for sale by Bayliss Rare Books in London on the 60th anniversary of its publication.

Oliver Bayliss, its founding director, told the Guardian: “Box of Pin-Ups is one of the most iconic photography collections of the 20th century, but until now no one knew this original proof existed.

“What makes it so fascinating is that this isn’t just a production copy or a variant. It is the prototype – the moment Bailey’s concept became a finished object. And it comes from Hillman, one of the great British designers of the postwar period, whose role in shaping this work has often been overshadowed by the fame of the images themselves.

“It’s an incredibly rare item … Proof copies are always sought after in the rare book trade. But generally, with something like this, a proof wouldn’t have been thought to exist. It is incredible.”

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Referring to the Krays, he said: “While the controversy tarnished the project’s reception in some circles, it paradoxically amplified its allure in others, cementing its rebellious edge.”

The portfolio’s other famous sitters included the actor Michael Caine, the hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, the dancer Rudolf Nureyev and the artist David Hockney.

Bayliss said: “The 1960s were a time of radical change in every sense, and Bailey’s portraiture was a striking departure from the more formal styles that had come before. His work was wonderfully informal, something we now take for granted but, at the time, it was groundbreaking. Bailey had, and still has, an uncanny ability to capture the personality of his sitters, not just their appearance. With the rise of celebrity culture in the 1960s, Box of Pin-Ups became a defining record of the era’s most iconic figures and their characters.”

He added: “I’d say half [the sitters] are still very well-known names, and half have fallen by the wayside. The model Susan Murray is among those whose star has since faded.”

Only four of the 36 sitters are women – and all of those are models. In the collection’s notes, Francis Wyndham wrote: “In the age of Mick Jagger, it is the boys who are the pin-ups.”

Jay Leno believes late-night TV comedians have become too politicized — and that they risk losing half the viewing audience by “cozying up to one side or the other.”

“To me, I like to think that people come to a comedy show to kind of get away from things, you know, the pressures of life, whatever it might be,” Leno said in a recent interview with David Trulio, president and CEO of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. “Now you have to be content with half the audience because you have to give your opinion.”

Leno didn’t name names. But the current roster of late-night hosts — Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Seth Meyers and more — has routinely mocked President Trump and the MAGA movement. To be fair, they have also opportunistically lampooned Democrats.

Leno’s impression is that late-night TV these days skews toward specific political viewpoints. “I love political humor, don’t get me wrong,” the late-night veteran told Trulio. “But it’s just what happens when people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other.” Leno asked rhetorically, “Why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole. I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture.”

Leno’s interview with Trulio, formerly Fox News Digital’s managing editor and head of strategy and editorial operations, was conducted before CBS announced on July 17 that it was canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” CBS claimed it was “purely a financial decision.”

The axing of Colbert’s show appeared to many critics to be another concession to Trump, coming after CBS parent company Paramount Global agreed to pay the president $16 million to settle what legal experts said was a meritless lawsuit going after “60 Minutes.” After Trump said “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Colbert told Trump to “Go fuck yourself.” On Friday, David Letterman, former “Late Show” host, slammed the cancellation of Colbert’s show as an act of “pure cowardice” and suggested that Skydance Media (whose takeover of Paramount is set to close next month after the FCC approved the deal) wanted Colbert ousted to avoid problems with the Trump administration.

The caption on the Reagan Foundation’s YouTube interview clip with Leno, which was posted July 22, says, “Late-night TV used to be about laughs — not lectures. ‪@jayleno‬ tells us why he never shared his political opinions on The Tonight Show, and why he thinks today’s hosts are losing half of America by doing so.” The first part of Trulio’s interview with Leno was posted July 9 on YouTube. Part 2, in which Leno “shares his thoughts on Reagan’s comedic brilliance,” was uploaded July 15.

Leno hosted “The Tonight Show” on NBC from 1992 to 2009; Conan O’Brien briefly took the reins of the show before NBC brought Leno back from 2010-14. Leno was the first late-night talk show host to conduct an interview with a sitting president, with President Barack Obama appearing on the show in March 2009.

After Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, Leno said in an appearance on “The View” that he was “not a fan” of Trump but that, “The nice thing about this election is, it was fair, it was honest…. there was no cheating. Everybody says it was honest. I mean, it’s a great day for democracy,” Leno added.

In the interview with Leno, Trulio alluded to a study of the comedian’s “Tonight Show” jokes, which Trulio said had found were “roughly equally balanced between going after Republicans and taking aim at Democrats.” According to a George Mason University analysis released in 2009, on “The Tonight Show” from 1992-2008, Leno told 4,468 jokes about Bill Clinton, nearly 50% more than George W. Bush (2,999 jokes). Following them in the Top 10 most frequent targets of Leno’s jokes were Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, O.J. Simpson, Dick Cheney, Michael Jackson, Monica Lewinsky, Bob Dole and John McCain.

Asked by Trulio what his strategy was vis-a-vis political humor, Leno replied, “It was funny to me when I got hate letters [that said], ‘You and your Republican friends’ and ‘Well, Mr. Leno, I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy‘ — over the same joke. And I go, ’Well, that’s good. That’s how you get a whole audience.’”

Leno has previously shared his belief that late-night hosts who have come after him are too one-sided. In 2019, he said on “The View” that he “always liked to humiliate and degrade both sides equally.”

SEE ALSO: Jay Leno Says Jimmy Kimmel ‘Humiliated Me’ During 2010 ‘Tonight Show’ Interview and ‘I Let It Happen. I Didn’t Edit It. It Was My Mistake.’

Jena Sims has been keeping it real when it comes to motherhood, career, and her relationship with husband Brooks Koepka.

In a new chat with Us Weekly, the 36-year-old model and actress opened up about balancing it all with the pro golfer and their 23-month-old son, Crew. 

“For so many women, motherhood is their calling and their ultimate goal. I totally respect that. But that is one of my goals,” she began and revealed that she made her priorities clear long before expanding the family. 

“When Brooks and I were discussing having children, I was always like, ‘I’m still going to be working. I’m still gonna have a life.’ I think it’s intimidating to a lot of women who can’t imagine it,” she explained.

It is pertinent to mention that Jena Sims recently makes a cameo in Happy Gilmore 2 alongside Brooks Koepka. 

Furthermore, the beauty mogul went on to address her husband, with whom she tied the knot in 2022, has always supported her independence.

“I just couldn’t live my life any other way. I’m thankful I found a partner who is very appreciative of that,” she shared. “If anything, I think it’s one of the things he finds most attractive about me.”

“We’re just such a good team and we’re really good at delegating,” she concluded.