“You don’t die from Parkinson’s. You die with Parkinson’s,” the Back to the Future actor said on CBS This Morning April 30. “I’m not gonna be 80. I’m not gonna be 80.”

Fox, 61, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which has affected his movement and caused tremors and slurred speech, in the ’90s. He has since largely put acting aside to focus on his work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which aims to find a cure for Parkinson’s. Meanwhile, his disease has progressed. As he said on CBS This Morning, “Every day, it’s tougher.”

Over the years, the actor has suffered many other health scares, some related to Parkinson’s and some not.

“I had spinal surgery. I had a tumor on my spine and it was benign,” Fox said on CBS Sunday Morning, appearing to reference a 2018 procedure. “Then I started to break stuff. I broke this arm and I broke this arm, I broke this elbow, I broke my face, I broke my hand.”

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The actor continued, “Falling and aspirating food and pneumonia. All these subtle ways that gets ya.”

Fox, a five-time Emmy winner and recipient of a 2022 honorary Oscar, rose to fame in the ’80s, playing Alex P. Keaton on the sitcom Family Ties and Marty McFly in the Back to the Future films. He said on CBS Sunday Morning that he recently watched the original movie for the first time since 1987. The actor recalled wife Tracy Pollan’s reaction.

“She said, ‘You’re watching Back to the Future?” he recalled. “‘Yeah, you know, I’m really good in it.'”

Tracy, who has been married to Michael since 1988, shares four kids with the actor—Sam Fox, 33, twins Aquinnah Fox and Schuyler Fox, 28, and Esmé Fox, 21. The Spin City star appears with his family in a new Apple TV+ documentary about his life, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which is set to begin streaming May 12.

Regarding his outlook on his life, Fox told CBS Morning that he realized that “with gratitude, optimism is sustainable.” He added, “If you find something to be grateful for, then you find something to look forward to and you carry on.”

The former first lady joined the rock icon onstage during his concert April 28 in Barcelona, Spain. She sang the background vocals and jammed on a tambourine alongside Springsteen during his performance of “Glory Days.”

The “Becoming” author performed in a purple ensemble with a black blazer overtop. She was all smiles and sang passionately into the mic alongside actor Kate Capshaw and band member Patti Scialfa.

Alfonso Gomis Duyos, @todoestoexiste on Twitter, shared the sweet moment on social media and captioned the video, “Wow there! @MichelleObama giving it everything” in Spanish.

Michelle Obama and her husband, Barack Obama, were in Barcelona with Steven Spielberg, who is married to Capshaw, for the Springsteen concert. According to Reuters, the group visited some of the city’s famous sites, including the Sagrada Família basilica and the Picasso museum, before the show Friday.

Springsteen, Spielberg and Barack Obama also had dinner together at the Amar restaurant April 27, according to Reuters.

Springsteen and Barack Obama are longtime friends. The singer performed at rallies for the then-presidential candidate during his 2008 campaign. Barack Obama also awarded Springsteen the nation’s highest honor for civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2016.

In 2021, the two teamed up to record a podcast together called “Renegades: Born in the USA,” in which they discussed the origins of their friendship, race in the U.S. and fatherhood.

Friday’s concert comes as Springsteen kicked off his international tour, following a concert in Newark, New Jersey, April 14, which wrapped his U.S. concert series. Springsteen and the E Street Band play next April 30 in Barcelona before heading to Dublin, Ireland.

“Glory Days” is one of the hits from Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” album, released in 1984. The song was one of seven singles from the album to break the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1985.

Michelle Obama wasn’t the only one to add flair to “Glory Days” in April. Kelly Clarkson and Charles Esten gave the song a country twang when they performed it together during the “Kellyoke” segment of her show April 10.

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“I definitely did not coin the phrase, but I feel despite us taking quite a lot of s— for it when we first announced that all these years ago, I feel very proud that we were able to, maybe, make some divorces a little easier, happier,” Paltrow, 50, said during a Q&A she had with her fans on her Instagram Stories.

“It makes me feel pretty proud when people come up to me on the street and say, ‘Thank you for introducing that concept because, you know, I’ve become good friends with my ex,’ etc,” she continued. “So, I’m very happy that we were able to play a small part in that cultural shift.”

In 2014, Paltrow announced that she and Martin were separating in a post she shared on the official Goop website.

The post read, “It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate. We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate.”

“We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and coparent, we will be able to continue in the same manner,” the statement added.

Paltrow and Martin share their two kids, Apple, 18, and Moses, 17, together.

The couple’s separation statement made headlines shortly after it was released, drawing varied reactions online. In a 2020 interview with British Vogue, Paltrow recalled the public’s reaction to it and said it was “a strange combination of mockery and anger.”

“I was already pretty tattered from what had been a tough year. Frankly, the intensity of the response saw me bury my head in the sand deeper than I ever had in my very public life,” she said.

As for how she came up with the term, “conscious uncoupling,” Paltrow said she never heard of the phrase before she used it, and frankly to her, “the term sounded a bit full of itself, painfully progressive and hard to swallow.”

“It was an idea introduced to us by our therapist, the man who helped us architect our new future,” she said.

“I was intrigued, less by the phrase, but by the sentiment,” Paltrow added. “Was there a world where we could break up and not lose everything? Could we be a family, even though we were not a couple? We decided to try.”

After Paltrow divorced Martin in 2016, she got married to “American Horror Story” creator Brad Falchuk in 2018. 

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With the coronation of King Charles III days away and his first seven months on the throne under his belt, many in Britain have grown to accept Camilla, though some experts and observers say she will always walk in the shadow of her past.

“Without really trying too hard, but just by giving it time and going gently, gently, she has managed to show people the real person that she is — that she’s not this villainess, and that she’s there to do the hard work,” said Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine. “But the most important thing about Camilla is the way she appears to support her husband and back him up.”

Camilla, 75, was mercilessly torn apart by the tabloids for years. Seward said she earned respect by putting her head down and steadily getting on with her duties. She’s won over much of the British public with her down-to-earth personality and her charitable work, notably against domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse — causes she says she’ll continue to support as queen.

But some say she’ll never fully shake her reputation as the third person in the marriage between Charles and Princess Diana.

“I would actually argue that she still is the other woman, and probably will remain the other woman,” said Arianne Chernock, a professor specializing in modern British history at Boston University. “Diana will very much be a presence in the room in Westminster Abbey in May 6 — I think it’s hard not to see her when you look at Charles and Camilla.

“And the challenge remains even going forward, even as Queen Camilla, which at one point would have been unthinkable.”

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Camilla Rosemary Shand — born July 17, 1947 to a family with long links with Britain’s royal family — reportedly first met Charles at a polo match in 1970, when she was 23. The pair quickly became close, but their romance was interrupted when Charles went on naval duty.

In his absence, Camilla married her longtime boyfriend, army officer Andrew Parker-Bowles, in 1973. Charles married Diana in 1981. In the early ′90s, Diana went public with her resentment of Charles and Camilla’s relationship. The sensational details that followed caused an embarrassing scandal for the royal family.

Camilla and her husband divorced in 1995, shortly after Charles gave an explosive television interview admitting the affair. Charles and Diana divorced the following year. In 1997, Diana died in a car crash; a global outpouring of grief followed. Camilla and Charles waited until 2005 to marry in a private civil ceremony.

Mindful of lingering public hostility toward Camilla, palace officials cautiously managed her public appearances over the decades. Camilla made dozens of official visits with charities each year, and her warm personality and ease at connecting with people no doubt helped her image makeover; those who’ve met her often describe her as warm, unstuffy and likeable.

“When you meet her, she doesn’t appear to be aloof in any way whatsoever,” Seward said. “She’s just always the same as she was. And I think this is one probably one of her biggest assets.”

Sensitivity about Camilla’s status as Charles’ second wife long made the question of what title she’d hold when he became king a subject of contention. Queen Elizabeth II settled the matter last year, when she gave the blessing for Camilla to be known as queen consort. The endorsement was widely seen as a formal sign that the royal family had finally accepted Camilla as a respected senior member.

Earlier this month, Buckingham Palace’s official coronation invitations referred to Camilla as “Queen Camilla” for the first time. Queen consorts do not formally share the sovereign’s powers, and dropping the “consort” part of the title won’t change that. Nonetheless, the change marked another step in Camilla’s long road to rehabilitating her image.

But the change in her title “does not necessarily suggest full public approval,” Chernock said. “Camilla, regardless of what she does, will always be divisive.”

In March, Camilla dazzled crowds at her first state visit as queen consort, donning a diamond tiara belonging to the Queen Mother and a diamond necklace from Elizabeth II for a state banquet in Berlin.

Her image makeover hit a snag when her stepson, Prince Harry, stirred up old grievances and painted her as a schemer who played “the long game,” with a campaign aimed at “marriage and eventually the crown.”

In his memoir “Spare” and in interviews promoting the book, Harry accused Camilla of trading private information about him and others to the media as part of a drive to forge friendly relationships with journalists and improve her reputation.

Harry said he and his elder brother, Prince William, had urged their father not to marry Camilla, but both reluctantly accepted her into their lives.

Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, hit back at Harry’s claims last week: “I don’t care what anyone says – this wasn’t any sort of end game. She married the person she loved and this is what happened.”

Camilla rarely speaks about her private life. In an interview with British Vogue last year, she acknowledged she was “scrutinized for such a long time that you just have to find a way to live with it.”

“Nobody likes to be looked at all the time and, you know, criticized,” she said. “But I think in the end, I sort of rise above it and get on with it.”

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She focuses her energy on the causes she champions: promoting children’s literacy and animal welfare, and speaking out about domestic sexual abuse and gender-based violence.

Chernock said that while Camilla and Charles’ relatively advanced years mean they have limited scope to reshape perceptions of the monarchy, it isn’t too late for her to tackle more complex topics and win wider respect.

“She has this incredible opportunity in front of her, this tremendous platform,” she said. She suggested the pair could “provide a space for some of the more challenging conversations that not just Britain, but global audiences want the royal family to be having right now — especially questions about legacies of racism, slavery, elitism.”

But Seward believes that may be too ambitious for a woman she believes never envisioned becoming queen.

“She’ll carry on with all these charities, but she’s going to get bombarded with a lot more,” she said. “She won’t be able to be too outspoken and won’t really want to be because, you know, everybody that cares knows what she thinks already.

“She’ll just get on with it. And that is really her mantra.”

There’s a second wife, an embarrassing brother, and an angry son and daughter-in-law, all with allies who aren’t shy about whispering family secrets in the ears of friendly reporters.

The new king will hope to keep a lid on those tensions when his royally blended family joins as many as 2,800 guests for Charles’ coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. All except Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are attending.

How Charles manages his family drama over the coming weeks and years is crucial to the king’s efforts to preserve and protect the 1,000-year-old hereditary monarchy he now embodies. Without the respect of the public, the House of Windsor risks being lumped together with pop stars, social media influencers and reality TV contestants as fodder for the British tabloids, undermining the cachet that underpins its role in public life.

Royal historian Hugo Vickers says people should look past the sensational headlines and focus on what Charles accomplishes now that he is king.

“In a sense, he sort of becomes a new man when he becomes king,” said Vickers, author of “Coronation: The Crowning of Elizabeth II.”

“Look at him as he is now, look at him the way he is approaching everything, look at his positivity and look at how right he’s been on so many issues,” he added. “Unfortunately, he had those difficult times with his marriages and some of the other issues, but we live in a very tricky era.”

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The horror show came back to haunt Charles last week, when the king’s estranged younger son, Prince Harry, dropped a new round of allegations Tuesday about the royal family into the middle of the coronation buildup.

In written evidence for his invasion of privacy claim against a British newspaper, Harry claimed his father prevented him from filing the lawsuit a decade ago. The prince said Charles didn’t want to dredge up graphic testimony about his extramarital affair with the former Camilla Parker-Bowles when he was married to the late Princess Diana.

Diana was the mother of Harry and his elder brother and heir to the throne, William, the Prince of Wales. Camilla, now the queen consort, went on to marry Charles in 2005 and will be crowned alongside her husband at Westminster Abbey.

If the past is any indication, attention will now shift to body language, seating plans and even wardrobe choices during the coronation, as royal watchers look for any signs of a thaw in the family tensions.

But Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, doesn’t expect Harry to have a lot of contact with the rest of his family. In any case, Harry won’t be in the U.K. for long, so there’s not much time for fence mending.

“The stuff that we discovered (Tuesday) is really not going to help his cause,” Little said. “But, you know, will there be time to go over all that with the king and the Prince of Wales? Unlikely.”

The royal soap opera didn’t begin with the current generation of royals. After all, Edward VIII sparked a constitutional crisis in 1936 when he abdicated the throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.

Charles’ grandfather, George VI, is credited with saving the monarchy with a life of low-key public service after he replaced his flamboyant elder brother. The late Queen Elizabeth II burnished the family’s reputation during a 70-year reign, in which she became a symbol of stability who cheered the nation’s victories and comforted it during darker times.

But Charles grew up in a different era, under the glare of media attention as deference to the monarchy faded.

He has been a controversial figure ever since the very public breakdown of his marriage to Diana, who was revered by many people for her looks and her compassion.

Diana alleged that there had been “three people” in the marriage, pointing the finger at Charles’ longtime love Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Camilla, initially reviled by Diana’s fans, has worked hard to rehabilitate her image. Her ex-husband and their children are expected to attend the coronation, with her grandsons serving as pages of honor.

She supports a raft of causes, ranging from adult literacy to protecting the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. But even that effort has sparked tensions.

Harry claimed in his memoir “Spare” that the senior royals leaked unflattering stories about him to the news media in return for more favorable coverage, particularly to improve Camilla’s image.

At the time of their marriage in 2018, Harry and Meghan were celebrated as the new face of the monarchy. Meghan, a biracial American actress, brought a touch of Hollywood glamour to the royal family and many observers hoped she would help the Windsors connect with younger people in an increasingly multicultural nation.

Those hopes quickly crumbled amid allegations that palace officials were insensitive to Meghan’s mental health struggles as she adjusted to royal life.

Harry and Meghan walked away from frontline royal duties three years ago and moved to California, from which they have lobbed repeated critiques at the House of Windsor.

In a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey they hinted at racism in the palace, alleging that one unidentified member of the royal family had inquired about the color of their unborn son’s skin before his birth.

Harry, in a Netflix series broadcast last year, said the episode was an example of unconscious bias and that the royal family needed to “learn and grow” so it could be “part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”

The repeated attacks led to months of speculation about whether the couple would be invited to the coronation. The palace finally answered that question two weeks ago when it announced that Harry would attend but Meghan would remain in California with their two children.

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And then there is Charles’ brother Prince Andrew, who became a toxic time bomb inside the royal family when the world learned about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the financier’s long-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes in 2008, died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on a second set of charges. Maxwell was convicted last year of helping procure young girls for Epstein and is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Florida.

Andrew gave up his royal duties in 2019 after a disastrous interview with the BBC in which he tried to explain away his links to Epstein and Maxwell. He was stripped of his honorary military titles and patronages as he prepared to defend a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who said she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was a teenager.

Andrew denied the allegations but settled the suit last year before it came to trial. While terms of the agreement weren’t released, The Sun newspaper reported that Charles and the late queen paid the bulk of the estimated 7 million pound ($8.7 million) settlement.

“I think it was inevitable that when Charles became king, a lot of the personal stuff would come back to haunt him,″ Little said. “I think as far as the king is concerned, he just has to shrug his shoulders and get on with the job in hand.”

That’s right, the 2023 Met Gala is here, so you know what that means: It’s time to break out your fanciest sweatpants and prepare to scratch your head over how your favorite celebrity’s outfit relates to this year’s theme, which is celebrating the work of Karl Lagerfeld, the former creative director of Chanel who passed away in 2019 from complications of pancreatic cancer.

The annual affair is so exclusive that it’s just one of four days that New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art closes—the others being Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. But the Met Gala, which was first held in 1948 and serves as a fundraiser for the museum’s costume institute, did not become the sartorial sensation that it’s known for today until Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour took over as the gala’s chair in 1995.

Under her direction, the arduous prep that goes into throwing the Met Gala has become mythical, with individual ticket prices sky-rocketing to $30,000—just wait until you hear how much a table costs—and hundreds of staffers working year-round to make sure the menu, seating chart and the exhibit itself are all picture-perfect…even if celebs aren’t allowed to snap photographs of anything once they step off the red carpet.

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To properly prep for 2023’s first Monday in May, check out all of these fashionably fun facts about the Met Gala:

If you’re lucky enough to score an invite to fashion’s biggest event of the year, a solo ticket costs $30,000, while a table is yours for $275,000.

Fortunately, not everyone has to pay to attend, as Anna Wintour is known to invite up-and-coming designers to the gala. And, usually, the celebrities invited specifically to model a designer’s work on the carpet don’t have to pony up either.

And the steep price tag isn’t enough to deter the rest of the stylish set: There is actually a waitlist.

“I’ve known of society names who couldn’t get a ticket and are prepped to go if there’s a last-minute seat that becomes available,” vintage store owner Cameron Silver, who has attended the event several times, revealed to Page Six in 2017. “They have their look ready even if they aren’t certain of whether they will actually have a seat days before the event.”

It varies, with 500 being considered small and cozy and 800, the largest number of attendees the Met Gala has ever entertained, being deemed too big.

“We do want the experience to feel intimate for our guests, so in the past few years, we’ve really scaled back and dropped numbers by almost 200 or 300 people,” Vogue’s Sylvana Ward Durrett told Fast Company.

Despite its reputation for opulence and glam, the organizers actually want the event to feel exclusive for the lucky few who get to attend, with Wintour usually starting the list with the hopes of keeping it at 500. “We want to keep this an intimate setting because that’s why people come to this,” Ward Durrett is overheard saying in “The First Monday in May.”

And just because a celebrity is invited doesn’t mean they automatically get a plus-one for their significant other; their partner must also land an invite of their own. 

There’s no rest for the fashionable as plans for the event usually start on the Tuesday immediately after the first Monday in May. (FYI, about 100 people work on the event year-round, including 10 full-time Vogue employees.)

“I’m a big fan of a one-sheet,” Vogue’s then-director of special projects Ward Durrett explained of her process. “We have sort of a running to-do list that just gets longer and longer as we get closer—and we literally go through [it] every day, even if it’s redundant.”

The first bullet point on her list? The tent. “Then you [write out] everything that’s involved surrounding [that aspect].” Making this list helps her to think about the event “from start to finish—and to make sure that we’re not missing anything.”

As for how involved Wintour is with the details, the late Vogue contributing editor Andre Leon Talley said in “The First Monday in May,” “Anna is meticulously vetting every single thing, from the napkins to the forks to the lighting. The detail of the flowers, the detail of the ushers, how they’re dressed, everything has been vetted for months and weeks and months and weeks.”

And she prefers to keep the details close to her iconic Chanel dress, with Vogue contributing editor Plum Sykes telling The New York Post, “It’s very secretive. [Wintour] doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s planning or what she’s up to until the minute they walk down that red carpet and through the door.”

If you’ve ever tried to do seating arrangements for a wedding, you might have a tiny understanding of just how difficult it is to do the seating chart for the Met Gala. This is one of the most important aspects of the event that the team spends the most time on, strategically seating guests by looking at common interests.

 “A lot of thought goes into who sits next to who, if they sat together last year, if they’ve sat next to each other at other events, so much goes into it, it’s shocking,” Ward Durrett said in “The First Monday in May.” “A lot of power-brokering.”

Of course, each year the seating arrangements go through many, many changes as the event takes shape, with Ward Durett telling Vogue she learned early on to invest in Velcro over post-it notes to avoid any errors. “There have been many iterations of the seating chart,” she said. “When I first started, we had just little stickies, and it was a nightmare—things were falling off, we were losing people and rewriting names a million times a day.”

Color-coding is also used, as Ward Durrett likes to go with the woman-man-woman-man pattern if possible. And another key rule that might surprise you: “Never seat spouses next to each other,” she said. “The whole point of these things is to meet new people, and to be interested in what others are doing. What’s the point if you come here to hang out with your husband?” Sorry, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds!

Listen, every event has that table that gets the nosebleed seats, usually near the kitchen and/or the bathroom. The Met Gala is no exception, so designers’ table positions usually change each year. And Wintour is very involved in the process, infamously chastising her team for trying to hide the H&M table in a scene from “The First Monda”y in May. “We shouldn’t bury this table…seriously, that’s not fair,” she said. 

Though it’s not a luxury brand or atelier, H&M (also an advertiser in Vogue and other publications) and other more accessible brands such as Topshop and Zara have started having more of a presence on fashion’s biggest night. Making its debut in 2015, H&M scored a big win by having Sarah Jessica Parker wear a custom gown. 

Given that it is one of the most A-list events of the year, it’s impossible not to have Hollywood exes and frenemies potentially seated near each other. Remember when Selena Gomez and The Weeknd attended together, as well as his ex Bella Hadid? So it’s likely taken into consideration that, say, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry probably shouldn’t have been at the same table back at the height of their feud. But, ultimately, the overall event trumps any potential tension or rivalries among the attendees.

“You can’t please everybody. We always like to think there’s not a bad [seat] in the house, which really there isn’t. You have to come away confident in the notion that you are doing your best, and that inevitably not everyone will be happy,” Ward Durrett said. “But we have a pretty good track record. The instances are few and far between, and we always try and work more closely with them the next year to manage expectations.”

(In one memorable scene in the “First Monday in May,” Ward Durrett had placed three Velcro tabs to the side of her seating chart, bluntly telling Wintour, “Those are people I am hoping will go away.”)

Alas, not everyone is happy with their assigned seat, as famed fashion critic Cathy Horn noted in her 2006 piece for The New York Times: “John Lydon, the former Sex Pistol known as Johnny Rotten, found his seat—the last at a long table and arguably one of the least desirable in the highly orchestrated seating plan—he was visibly upset…[he] stormed out twice, cursing museum workers.”

He eventually took his seat.

During a 2018 appearance on “The Late Late Show,” James Corden asked Wintour to name any celebrity she would never invite back to the Met Gala.

“Donald Trump,” she responded. (Then-President Trump and wife Melania Trump have attended the Met Gala several times over the years, though they last climbed those infamous stairs in 2012.)

Another celeb who claims to have been banned from the Met Gala? Former Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn, who alleged he was blacklisted by Wintour after telling a story she found unflattering about her to The Post.

“All hell broke loose, it was insane,” he said on E!’s Fashion Police back in 2016. “So we have had an open war ever since.”

Yes, dinner is actually served at the event, with Stephen Colbert revealing all of the guests had to wait for Wintour to take her seat before digging in.

Like every other aspect, Wintour is heavily involved in the menu planning for each gala. 

A Vogue employee told the Post that Wintour once banned ingredients that had the potential to get stuck in your teeth (parsley) or could give a guest bad breath (a lot of garlic) or, worst of all, stain their gown, so appetizers are made to be easily eaten. 

Wintour usually prefers that the food served somewhat corresponds to the theme. Though that doesn’t always work out.

Glorious Food owner Sean Driscoll, who catered every Met Gala from 1995 through 2018, said the decision to serve lamb potpies for 2011’s “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” theme resulted in “a lot of special requests” as “many [guests] did not want to eat that.”

But they also want the food to look good, with “The First Monday in May” director Andrew Rossi admitting he was shocked by the level of detail, especially when he attended a tasting with Wintour and watched her: “We see Anna literally going on her phone to look up the presentations of different food.”

No one is exactly sure why the rule was instated, as no official explanation has ever been given for the decision to ban selfies and the use of social media from the glamorous and already-FOMO-inducing event. But it was made by Wintour in 2015.

At the time, a Vogue source revealed to Pret-a-Reporter that a notice went out to all invitees, warning, “The use of phones for photography and social media will not be permitted inside the gala.”

The magazine declined to comment on the report, but a source told The Hollywood Reporter at the time, “It has solely to do with guests’ security and enjoyment of the event.”

Wintour’s disdain for phones at the event was clear in a memorable scene from “The First Monday in May,” wherein she discovered a male celebrity (whose name had been blurred, per Wintour’s request) had decided to attend the event after initially declining. “Can he not be on his cellphone the entire time then?” she asked Ward Durrett. 

In an interview with The Post, Ward Durrett explained, “Anna is sort of an old-school traditionalist. She likes a dinner party where people are actually speaking to each other. We aren’t sitting over people’s shoulders, but if it’s an obvious thing we might gently remind them.”

Still, despite Wintour’s ban, snap-happy celebs have broken the rule many times, including Kylie Jenner’s infamous bathroom selfie from the 2017 affair. 

Technically, you must be 18 years or older to attend the big event, with organizers confirming the age restriction ahead of the 2018 Met Gala after Maddie Ziegler revealed she was unable to attend because she was only 15. “I can’t go, because I’m not old enough!” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

 “It’s not an appropriate event for people under 18,” the event’s organizer explained to THR, with the new age limit going into effect that year.

Prior to 2018, some of the youngest attendees included siblings Jaden Smith and Willow Smith attending in 2016 when they were 17 and 15, respectively, Elle Fanning making her debut at the event when she was just 13, and Hailee Steinfeld attending her first Met Gala in 2011 at age 14. 

But there seems to be a loophole for the younger fashionistas in Hollywood: A minor may attend if their parents are in attendance.

While Wintour has final say over every attendee’s attire, their loos technically do not have to be approved by the Vogue EIC (though she is aware of everything that gets to walk the famous carpet).

“Each celebrity has been chosen to wear a gown by a designer. It’s like assignments,” Andre Leon Talley said in The First Monday in May, with former Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, who dressed Beyoncé and Madonna for the 2016 Met Gala, further explaining, “Each designer brings his own muse. You bring a person that most represents your aesthetic.”

That means that, for the most part, a celebrity’s look is up to the designer that invited them to the event.

While each year’s gala has a theme—this year’s is “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” 2019’s was “Camp: Notes on Fashion”—there are no strict guidelines when it comes to a guest or designer’s interpretation. 

But how is the theme actually selected? It’s a long process that starts well over a year before the first Monday of May, with Andrew Bolton, the tireless longtime curator of The Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, choosing something that is culturally relevant.

“What I try to do is work on a topic that seems timely, and that defines a cultural shift that’s happening or is about to happen,” he explained to Vogue. “We always try to have a menu of shows that are dynamic, that go back and forth on subjects from the past and the present, between thematic shows and monographic ones of a single designer. We try to mix it up.”  

After he narrows down his search, he presents it for approval to the museum’s director before Wintour then signs off on it about one year ahead of time. 

“It would be difficult to do it without her support,” the esteemed British curator explained. “Anna works out what sponsors would be appropriate for the exhibition. Sometimes I have an idea, and it’s less of a big idea or popular idea, which is not terribly appealing to sponsors.” 

Once the guests have walked the red carpet and survived the iconic steps, they then greet Wintour and the other hosts (2023’s class includes Dua Lipa, Penelope Cruz and Roger Federer) in a receiving line, which generally takes quite a bit of time with all the air-kissing and exchanging of pleasantries.

After that, they are invited to walk through The Costume Institute’s exhibition before it opens to the public. Then it’s time to eat, mingle and network, with music, dancing and performances from the likes Rihanna and Lady Gaga.

Speaking of the high-profile performers, a lot of the stress in terms of planning the Met Gala stems from the entertainment aspect of the night. Why? 

As infamously documented in “The First Monday in May,” Ward Durrett faced a major budgetary issue when it came to booking Rihanna for that year’s gala. 

“It’s about twice as much as any performer we’ve ever had,” she said of Rihanna’s undisclosed fee after having a conversation on the phone with someone from the superstar’s team. “They’re not interested in making it come down any further.”

Eventually, Wintour was called to step in and figure the situation out.

Celebrities are allowed to bring their own security guards to the event, in addition to the ones hired by the Museum for the red carpet.

But really, the objects that require the most security detail are the jewels. One year, Blake Lively wore $3.5 million worth of baubles, while Karlie Kloss was once draped in $2.5 million worth of Forevermark jewels for the event. 

“The full security process is kept top secret because of the incredibly high value of the pieces involved, but there is always a security guard present until the pieces are safely returned,” a Forevermark rep told E! News. Additional security measures are also taken, like RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) trackers and video monitoring.

So yes, “Ocean’s 8” definitely got that aspect of the Met Gala right.

Given that many dresses are custom-made for the Met Gala or are pulled from designer’s couture archives, it’s rare that celebrities are allowed to keep their gowns. More often than not, they go back to the design house to be archived.

Though, in 2018, Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing teamed up with Bono’s RED to auction off custom pieces worn by celebs such as Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, Trevor Noah and more, with 100 percent of the proceeds going toward the foundation’s Global Fund.

For 2021’s event, attendees were required to wear face masks and provide proof of their COVID-19 vaccination, which led to rapper Nicki Minaj choosing not to partake in the fashionable festivities.

“They want you to get vaccinated for the Met,” Minaj posted on Twitter. “if I get vaccinated it won’t [be] for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now. In the meantime my loves, be safe. Wear the mask with 2 strings that grips your head & face. Not that loose one.”

Live From E!: Met Gala 2023

Owner and pitmaster at Austin’s Interstellar BBQ, John Bates, explains how important brisket is to Texas culture.

“Texas barbecue is definitely built around a few key concepts,” he said. “It’s very much driven by offset smokers. Our style is typically very low and slow with a lot of smoke and clean flavors going through the pits. It’s also built on mostly brisket. It’s definitely the most important item in all Texas barbecue.”

Pitmaster at Corkscrew BBQ in Spring, Will Buckman, discusses why he left his career in communications to open the restaurant.

“I was spending a lot of time out in the driveway cooking these things for free to share with friends and family,” Buckman said. “It wasn’t until my wife stepped in because she was fighting for my time that said, you know, you should really be charging for these efforts.”

And Texas Monthly BBQ Editor Daniel Vaughn tells host Baylee Friday what he looks for when he reviews a new restaurant.

“Almost every barbecue joint in the state has sliced brisket, ribs, pork ribs, and sausage. So I usually start there,” Vaughn said. “I’ll ask if the sausage is housemade. If not, I’ll probably look for something else on the menu. Like maybe a smoked turkey, which has gotten a lot more popular in Texas over the last decade.”

Listen to Texas Wants to Know in the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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“I love this organization,” Sheffler said. “Since the day I walked in, I loved the fact that we are an organization that supports so many, that supports the entire arts community.”

Sheffler previously served TACA as its Deputy Director, leading the organization’s grantmaking, programs, and marketing strategy. She focused on strengthening TACA’s relationship with its grantees while creating new grant programs, collaborating on community research initiatives, and building programs that are the foundation for TACA’s equity, diversity, and inclusion strategy.

“My focus has been on the programming side,” Sheffler said. “But I did have a lot of opinions about things I wished we had done or things I wished we had done more. So, it’s an opportunity to actually be able to do some of those things that I have believed we could lean more into, but those were things outside my jurisdiction.”

As she reassesses TACA’s fundraising strategy, Sheffler wants to bring the strengths of the organization’s programming efforts to its fundraising strategy.

“We should bring more of our mission into our strategic direction for development and center our grantees in as many ways as we can when we engage with the philanthropic community,” Sheffler said. “It really marries the mission and the money.”

Sheffler has recently established Meet the Catalysts, a series of intimate events highlighting arts organizations that receive TACA’s Catalyst Grants, formerly the Arts General Operating Grant Program. The series is designed to educate the philanthropic community about TACA’s impact on the arts ecology.

“We don’t need to tell people. We need to show them and so really create engagement and experiences that center the work that we support, the organizations that we support and highlight the depth of knowledge that TACA has institutionally of the arts community. We know the big cornerstone institutions and we know all the cracks and crevices and the organizations working more off the beaten path that we want to get more people to know about. So, identifying ways to show that impact that will, I believe, ultimately work not only to our benefit but for the benefit of the community is the course we have set for our organization,” Sheffler said.

One of the first Meets the Catalyst events was at Dallas Center for Photography, introducing TACA supporters to an organization that only recently began receiving funds from TACA.

“So, we make these connections,” Sheffler said.

Sheffler’s initial involvement in the arts was as a musician. She began playing violin at age six and earned a BA in Music from SMU. She went on to earn an MA in Arts Management and an MBA in Marketing, also from SMU, while working as a freelance musician.

“I credit my training as an artist for giving me the skills that have made me successful in other areas of my life: dedication, tenacity, persistence, hard work,” Sheffler said.

Having worked as a musician, Sheffler understands how hard it is for an artist to make a living. That experience shapes her perception of TACA’s function in the arts community.

“I think TACA plays a role in its own way of trying to improve the health of the ecosystem and trying to support organizations and artists in pursual of a more sustainable way of doing business,” Sheffler said.

Sheffler is retooling programs to help support arts organizations as they continue to recover from the pandemic. She is keenly aware arts organizations will need significant financial support for the next few years.

“We know audiences are slow to come back to live and in-person events. Organizations are still more dependent on contributed revenue than they were before the pandemic,” Sheffler said.

Perforum, TACA’s community-wide arts symposium that highlights trends and issues within the arts community, will be relaunched this fall to meet evolving needs. TACA recently hosted a conversation about succession planning and leadership transitions as arts administrators and leaders retire, shift to other organizations or leave the industry.

“The Great Resignation has not avoided the arts and culture sector,” Sheffler said.

The program was so popular that TACA decided to create a virtual version. Sheffler recognizes that the demand for that program indicates how TACA must adapt to meet the needs of the arts industry.

“Listen and respond. That’s our job,” Sheffler said.

Learn more: TACA

“Wheel of Fortune” viewers found themselves doing a double take during the April 26 episode of the ABC game show when host Pat Sajak suddenly went MIA, leaving the show’s announcer Jim Thornton to take over for the final bonus round.

“Where is Pat Sajak for the final puzzle?” one fan tweeted, while another asked, “Where did Pat Sajak go for the last segment of tonight’s show?”

So, what happened? Well, it turns out, the contestant who made it to the bonus round, Sarah, is a big fan of the “Wheel of Fortune” announcer, so the show decided to have Pat and Jim temporarily swap places.

“I love Jim Thornton so much,” Sarah told Pat earlier in the show. “And how could someone not? His voice is so soothing and energizing. He’s hilarious and just such a good person.”

“When I don’t hear his voice I worry about him,” she added. “So, I’m so glad he’s here.”

2023 TV Premiere Dates

The “Wheel of Fortune” Instagram account even teased the swap, writing, “If only we could figure out a way for Sarah and Jim to meet…”

And they did! For the final puzzle, Pat headed to the announcer’s booth and Jim took the spot on the stage next to Sarah.

And although Sarah didn’t end up solving the final puzzle — missing out on the $40,000 prize — it was still a special moment for her.

“I had so much fun,” she told Jim. “And we got to do it together!”

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Bonnie Wright is pregnant with her and husband Andrew Lococo’s first child. The actress, best known for playing Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter films, announced the news on Instagram alongside a photo of her showcasing her baby bump. For the snap, she wore a sleeveless dress while appearing with her partner in front of a picturesque mountain view.

“We’re having a baby!” Wright wrote in her April 28 post. “So excited to share this beautiful land with them. What a wild and humbling journey pregnancy is, transforming to make space for new life.”

The 32-year-old continued, “Andrew and I can’t wait to meet our baby later this year and become parents. It feels like they’re coming to say hello in the little rainbow orb across my belly.”

Wright, who married Lococo in March 2022, received a slew of congratulatory comments, including from Scarlett Byrne Hefner, who played Pansy Parkinson in the Harry Potter films, and James Phelps, who played Ginny’s brother Fred Weasley. After he wrote, “Congratulations,” fans were delighted, with one commenting in response, “You’re havin a nephew.”

See the Kid Stars of Harry Potter Then and Now

Wright is one of several former Harry Potter stars who played Hogwarts students to start a family in recent years.

Her onscreen husband Daniel Radcliffe, whose main character Harry Potter shares three kids with Ginny, welcomed his first baby with his girlfriend, Erin Darke, several weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Rupert Grint, who played Fred’s younger brother and one of Harry’s best friends, Ron Weasley, and his partner, Georgia Groome, share daughter Wednesday Grint, who is almost 3.

In addition, Phelps’ twin brother Oliver Phelps, who played Fred’s twin George Weasley, has two daughters with wife Katy Humpage, while Byrne shares three daughters with husband Cooper Hefner.

After relocating his family from Los Angeles to their new home in Las Vegas last year, the 51-year-old is sharing an update on how his wife, Rhea Durham, and their four kids—Ella, 19, Michael, 16, Brendan, 14, and Grace, 12—are adjusting to life in Sin City.

“They love Vegas,” Wahlberg exclusively told E! News‘ April 27 episode while promoting his partnership with Flecha Azul Tequila at Hard Rock Hotel’s T60 Rooftop Bar & Lounge in NYC. “I spent lots of time in L.A. pursuing my interests and my career and now it’s time for them to pursue theirs. Everybody is thriving there, it’s been great.”

The move also comes with perks, including several celebrity residencies. And, yes, Wahlberg has taken advantage of the endless entertainment now available to him.

“I saw Adele, I saw Bruno Mars,” he shared. “I’ve seen quite a few shows and been to lots of great restaurants. There’s so much to do in Vegas and it’s so exciting.”

Mark Wahlberg’s Best Roles

After putting put his family’s lavish, 30,500-square-foot Beverly Hills estate on the market for a whopping $87.5 million last spring, Wahlberg revealed in October that he moved his family to Las Vegas to put his kids and their interests first.

“To be able to give my kids a better life and follow and pursue their dreams,” he said on an Oct. 11 episode of The Talk, “whether it be my daughter as an equestrian, my son as a basketball player, my younger son as a golfer, this made a lot more sense for us.”

He added, “We came here to just kind of give ourselves a new look, a fresh start for the kids, and there’s lot of opportunity here. I’m really excited about the future.”

Kate Middleton opened up about her connection to husband Prince William‘s mom, the late Princess Diana, during a recent visit to Wales. While meeting royal watchers gathered outside the Dowlais Rugby Club on April 27, the Princess of Wales revealed that she and Diana—who died in 1997—share the same ring size, so William didn’t have alter the band on his mother’s blue sapphire jewelry piece when he proposed with it in 2010.

“It’s the same ring,” Kate said, as seen in a video posted on Instagram. “And it’s exactly the same size.”

And given how Kate never met Diana before her death, the 41-year-old noted that the sparkler remains to be one her most cherished possessions.

“It is very special,” she remarked. “What an honor to be able to wear it.”

Sharing that Diana would’ve been a “brilliant grandmother,” Kate added, “We miss her everyday.”

The engagement ring—a 12-carat sapphire surrounded by 14 solitaire diamonds—was originally gifted to Diana when King Charles III popped the question in 1981. Diana kept the bauble after her 1996 divorce from the royal.

While it was previously reported that Prince Harry inherited the gem upon Diana’s death and had offered it to his older brother, the Duke of Sussex wrote in his memoir Spare that he “never gave Willy that ring because it wasn’t mine to give.”

“He had already had it,” Harry shared. “He’d asked for it after Mummy died, and I’d been more than happy to let it go.”

But the ring isn’t Kate’s only link to Diana. When Charles ascended to the British throne following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September, Kate was dubbed the new Princess of Wales—a title previously held by Diana—while William inherited his father’s Prince of Wales role.

At the time, a royal source told E! News that Kate “appreciates the history associated with this role, but will understandably want to look to the future as she creates her own path.”

“The Prince and Princess of Wales will approach their roles in the modest and humble way they’ve approached their work previously,” the insider continued, adding that the couple are also “focused on deepening the trust and respect of the people of Wales over time.”

The legendary broadcast host, who helmed “The Jerry Springer Show” for 27 years, died of pancreatic cancer, his representative and friend Jean Galvin told NBC News.

Springer passed away at his suburban Chicago home on April 27 following what his family described as a brief illness, per their statement to E! News. He was 79.

“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,” Galvin said on behalf of Springer’s family in a statement obtained by E! News. “He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on.”

Following news of his death, Maury Povich paid tribute to the talk show host, describing him as a “joyful, smart and, in his own way, a unique showman.”

Jerry Springer’s Life in Pictures

“I am shocked and saddened by the passing of Jerry,” Maury said in a statement to E! News. “He was not only a colleague but a friend. We worked for the same company for decades. I will miss him.”

Springer was also honored with a billboard outside his studio in Connecticut featuring his catchphrase, “Take care of yourself and each other.”

The studio was one of the former filming locations for “The Jerry Springer Show,” which ran from 1991 to 2018. The show saw Springer mediate confrontations and feuds in front of a live audience, who would chant “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” during tense moments.

While he once said he doesn’t take his “silly” show that “seriously,” he told Reuters in 2000 that he’ll also defend its significance.

“When people argue about the show intellectually,” he said at the time, per NBC, “then I’m prepared to answer about why I think it is OK to do it and why I think it’s important that shows like that are on the air.”

Springer also held hosting gigs at “Judge Jerry,” “Tabloid With Jerry Springer,” “Baggage” and “America’s Got Talent.” However, he stepped out of his hosting duties to compete in “Dancing With the Stars” in 2006 and “The Masked Singer” in 2022.

Before he became a television staple, Springer served as the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1977 to 1978 and anchored Cincinnati television station WLWT in the ’80s and ’90s.

Springer is survived by his 47-year-old daughter Katie Springer, who he shared with ex-wife Micki Velton.

For more than 15 years the museum has provided science exhibits like no other. Exhibits such as dinosaurs, sports, and even an exhibition dedicated to the science of our atmosphere. You can learn what our planet is made up of and what causes climate change. Telemundo’s Chief Meteorologist, Nestor Flecha is even featured in one of the exhibits inside the museum where he explains why there is rain on Earth and not on Venus!

Children’s Day features educational activities by the Perot Museum with its technology trucks or “Tech Trucks”, the Dallas Zoo will also be present with more fun activities for children. You cannot miss the special presentation of the clowns Toty and Andy, face painting and of course live DJ music. In addition, snacks will be available during the celebration.

Sponsors will be giving away prizes and attendees will receive a gift bag from the Perot Museum. As a special gift, the Perot Museum will be giving annual family memberships to the Perot Museum with a value of $ 230, totally free for all families who are part of the celebration of our children!

About the Perot Museum of Nature and Science:
Located in the heart of Dallas, Texas, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science is a nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to inspiring minds through nature and science. Guests will find everything from dinosaurs to diamonds, space and sports on five levels of hands-on discovery and adventure. Through its cutting-edge exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach activities, the Perot Museum offers exciting and innovative experiences for students of all ages. For more information, visit www.perotmuseum.org.

Children’s Day with the Perot Museum
Sunday, April 30
12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Perot Museum of Nature and Science
2201 North Field Street
Dallas, TX 75201
Parking Lot A
www.perotmuseum.org

Simpson, then 30, showed up without a football or a jersey, and Warhol had to scramble to find a ball. That Polaroid shoot led to 11 silkscreen portraits; one of them is now going on auction for the first time.

Signed by both men, the portrait is billed by the auction house as a work that brings together two of the most recognizable names of the 20th century and captures “a trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”

“Warhol certainly could never have imagined how differently the image would come to be viewed, nor the controversy that still lingers around its subject today,” said Robert Manley, co-head of 20th century and contemporary art at the Phillips auction house, which is auctioning the work May 16.

It was almost two decades after Warhol’s photo shoot, in 1995, that Simpson — who had retired from the NFL in 1979 and pursued an acting career — was acquitted of the double slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was later found liable for the deaths by a California civil court jury that ordered him to pay $33.5 million to victims’ families.

In a separate case more than a decade later, Simpson was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas for leading five men, including two with guns, in a 2007 confrontation with two sports collectibles dealers in a cramped room at an off-strip Las Vegas casino hotel. Simpson served nine years in a Nevada prison for armed robbery. He was discharged from parole in December 2021.

Manley noted that five decades after Warhol made it, the portrait still evokes a strong reaction.

“Those who view the image of Simpson staring directly down the camera are likely to recall the other notorious picture of the celebrity — his mugshot,” Manley said. “Juxtaposing these two images, created at such different points in Simpson’s life, shows a fascinating trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”

Commissioned as part of the broader “Athletes” series that included Muhammad Ali, soccer star Pelé, tennis star Chris Evert, golf’s Jack Nicklaus and figure skater Dorothy Hamill, among others, by Warhol friend and collector Richard Weisman, this particular portrait spent 19 years at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where it was donated in 1992 and, according to a spokesperson there, never displayed.

In 2011, it was deaccessioned — or permanently removed from the collection — and sold to an anonymous collector in a private sale through Christie’s, with proceeds going to fund preservation of other items in the hall’s collection, said hall spokesperson Rich Desrosiers. Phillips estimates the portrait will sell in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. As with any of the athletes in the series, Simpson would not have existing rights to proceeds, the auction house said.

The highest price achieved at auction for one of Warhol’s Simpson portraits was $687,000, sold in 2019.

Warhol photographed Simpson in Buffalo on Oct. 19, 1977. According to the auction catalog, a quote from Warhol’s diary that day reads, “He had a five-day beard and I thought the pictures would be awful.” Warhol died in 1987 at age 58.

The work will be on public display May 6-15 in New York before being auctioned.

The “Chemical” rapper recently addressed the speculation over his health on social media, attributing his slimmer look to some changes in his diet after welcoming his daughter last year.

“I wanted to say that I’m not doing drugs,” Post Malone wrote, in part, on Instagram on April 27. “I’ve had a lot of people ask me about my weight loss and I’d suppose, performance on stage. I’m having a lot of fun performing, and have never felt healthier. I guess dad life kicked in and I decided to kick soda, and start eating better so I can be around for a long time for this little angel.”

And the musician noted that it’s one of several changes he’s making for his and his fiancée’s almost 1-year-old.

“Next up is smokes and brews,” he said, “But I like to consider myself a patient man… lol!”

Stars Who Gained or Lost Weight for Roles

In addition to sharing an update on his lifestyle, the “Sunflower” artist, who is currently touring Europe, also suggested that some new tracks are on the way.

“I’ve spent a bit in the studio lately working on new music, and am so excited to share it with you,” Post Malone wrote. “Thank you for your patience and support y’all. You make my heart beat. I just wanted to say hi, and hopefully I’ll be posting more on here, my brain is in a super dope place, and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”

He also offered his fans some words of support: “If you’re having a hard time or need some love, I can say that you’re loved more than you know, and keep f–king crushing it. goodnight nerds…spread love and rock on.”

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Then I did my 2018 taxes and discovered I owed the U.S. government $2,798 and New York state $345 from the full-time freelance work I’d done the year before.

I made a long-term plan to pay it off but apparently clicked the wrong button and woke up the following day to discover an alarming new bank account balance: negative $1,243. Like most Americans, I did not have $1,243.

I was lucky. A family member was able to lend me $1,243 at no interest, as well as an extra $50 so I wouldn’t starve till my next payday. But I did need to pay back the money as soon as I could.

I started looking for work outside of my day job to help cover the bill. Among the various side hustle sites I perused was internet jungle Craigslist. That’s when I saw an ad I couldn’t really believe.

“Help me find love online,” it read.

‘You will facilitate some dates with guys who have all their teeth’

“Looking for a funny, smart writer, actor or creative to online date for me,” it began.

“I will give you access to my accounts. You will facilitate some dates with guys who have all their teeth, a job and some other criteria I’ll tell you about later. You can do it while waiting for the bus, from your couch, from the toilet.” She was a local creative, she wrote, and was tired of the online dating grind. She wanted someone to handle the apps so she could just show up on the dates.

Qualifications for the gig included the following:

• “Must writing goodly — seriously, though, I’m trying to match with intelligent, well-educated men”
• “Must be confident and a damn good flirt”
• “I don’t care about your gender as long as you’re into men — otherwise I think this will all be too abstract”
• “Must have at least one long-term relationship (over a year) under your belt, so that you have a sense of what an emotionally available man presents like”

To apply, she said, share a resume, a note about what interests you about the gig and “a brief description of YOUR dream man.” She’d pay $25 per hour or a flat rate per date you arranged.

Getting paid to ‘help a badass lady find some man gold’

I couldn’t believe it. This gig actually sounded fun.

I’m a professional wordsmith, I said in the email I immediately sent, so I was capable of “writing goodly.” I’ve been dabbling with dating apps for years so have a handle on how those things work. My dream man is kind of elusive but loosely he’s kind, intelligent and quietly confident, perhaps Andrew Garfield.

I could fully relate to her dating app woes. “If I can help a badass lady find some man gold,” I wrote, “that feels like a pretty major win.”

Within hours, I got a response: “Hey Gili, let’s talk.”

We Skyped the following day then met up for drinks at a wine bar in Brooklyn to hammer out details. I’d swipe and text on her behalf using her profiles on apps like Bumble and OkCupid. She’d give final approval, and then I’d set up the dates.

Pay was $100 upfront then $150 for each date.

‘Dreams DO come true’

The gig didn’t last long. Over the next three or so weeks, I swiped on and chatted up likely dozens of guys at night and on lunch breaks. I must have spent at least 20 hours doing this.

It felt kind of bizarre. When I was texting as me, I always felt comfortable being a goof. But I was pretending to be someone else and didn’t want to say anything that wasn’t authentic. I found myself regularly turning down any natural sass.

The other challenge was that given the fact that my client was paying $150 per date, she was picky. There was plenty of interest on the guys’ parts. But there was often a reason she wouldn’t move forward. Some dudes were a little too forward. Some a little too old. Some were too reminiscent of exes.

Eventually I told her that, though I understood why she was picky, it meant I did hours of work without getting paid. And the gig sort of fizzled from there. Altogether, all I made was that initial $100.

We lost touch over the pandemic, but I reached out recently to see how she’s doing. Turns out she reconnected with and has been happily dating someone she met on Tinder before she and I even embarked on our personal Cyrano de Bergerac.

“Dreams DO come true,” she said.

As for my own 2019 objective, through various side gigs and vigorous saving, I paid off the $1,293 by fall.

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“We started this show with Obama, then Trump and a global pandemic. I’ve watched America change a lot. I’ve watched divisions grow and I’ve felt a sense of negativity boil over,” said the host. He implored his audience to “remember what America signifies to the rest of the world. My entire life it has always been a place of optimism. … Yes, it has flaws but show me a place that doesn’t. Show me a person that doesn’t.

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“Just because somebody disagrees with you it doesn’t make them bad or evil. We are all more the same than we are different. There are so many people who are trying to stoke those differences and we have to try as best we can to look for the light, look for the joy. If you do, it’s out there. That’s all this show has ever been about,” he said.

Corden announced one year ago that he would be ending his late-night show after eight seasons, citing a desire to return to his native UK to be closer to family and loved ones. His parents were seated in the audience for the final taping, and his sisters, he joked, were in town too —- but at a bar instead.

Also Thursday CBS aired a primetime special called “The Last Last Late Late Show Special” featuring taped segments with Tom Cruise (where they performed stunts and sang a duet of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from “The Lion King”) and Adele, where they taped a final Carpool Karaoke segment.

Corden reminded the singer that she has an Emmy, Grammy and Oscar and wondered if she would ever actively pursue a Tony Award. “You have the EGO” he said.

“I really don’t think that that is ever gonna happen. I would never write a musical or anything like that because I (expletive) hate musicals,” said Adele to laughter. “I also think the EGO suits me better.”

Harry Styles and Will Ferrell were Corden’s final guests. Styles has been a frequent visitor to the show, and has even guest-hosted twice. He’s been game for a number of taped bits with Corden including the time the host directed a music video for Styles’ song “Daylight” for just $300 and when the musician took part in a more than 11-minute segment featuring a UK Vs. US dodgeball game where Corden, Styles, “Games of Thrones” actor James Bradley and Benedict Cumberbatch faced off against players including Michelle Obama, Mila Kunis, Kate Hudson, Lena Waithe, and Melissa McCarthy.

“As a friend, I’m so incredibly proud of you,” Styles told Corden. “On a personal note, you’ve been a safe space to me always as a friend.” He added that he was ’”selfishly very excited that you’re coming home.” Styles, Corden and Ferrell then embraced in a group hug.

There were also goodbyes from the other late night hosts. Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and David Letterman all appeared in a pre-taped segment with Corden. They joked that since Corden was ending his show, they could each call dibs on one of his segments.

They all chose Carpool Karaoke, referencing Corden’s most popular sketch where he drives around Los Angeles with celebrities and sing songs. Paul McCartney, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder and Chris Martin are a few of his Carpool Karaoke passengers. The segment was such a hit that it spun-off into its own series for Apple. Corden only appeared in the debut episode with Will Smith in the car.

Corden closed out the night by playing the piano and singing a song with the crew and staff gathered around the stage. “Part of me thinks I should stay here forever but deep in my heart I just know,” Corden sang. “No more shows to be showing, it’s time I was going, It’s time. Thanks for watching, that’s our show.”

The Duchess of Sussex has signed for representation with William Morris Endeavor, the talent agency confirmed to E! News on April 27. Archewell, the organization and content creation brand she founded with husband Prince Harry in 2020, will also be represented by WME moving forward.

Markle’s team now includes powerhouse agents Ari Emanuel, Brad Slater and Jill Smoller, whose combined client list boasts the likes of Dwayne Johnson and Serena Williams.

The partnership will focus on Markle’s business and creative ventures—but not on acting, according to Variety.

News of the deal comes three years after Markle, 41, and Harry, 38, stepped back as working members of the British royal family and relocated to California.

Since the transatlantic move, they’ve signed a production deal with Spotify—part of which includes Meghan’s Archetypes podcast—and released a docu-series titled Harry & Meghan under their multi-year partnership with Netflix.

Meghan Markle Through the Years

The pair also welcomed daughter Lilibet “Lili” Diana in June 2021, expanding their family that includes son Archie Harrison, now 3.

On May 6, Markle will miss her in-laws King Charles III and Queen Camilla‘s coronation in London in order to celebrate Archie’s fourth birthday, which falls on the same day, at home. However, a rep for the couple confirmed to E! News that Harry will still be attending the crowning ceremony.

A spokesperson for Markle also recently debunked a report that the Suits alum was skipping the royal gathering over allegations of unconscious bias in the family around the time of her and Harry’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. (During the sit-down with Oprah, Meghan alleged that “several conversations” were had with Harry and an unidentified royal about “how dark” their firstborn child’s skin would be.)

“The Duchess of Sussex is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago,” her spokesperson told E! News in an April 22 statement. “Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous.”

Sheeran was an hour into testimony in Manhattan federal court when his lawyer, Ilene Farkas, pressed him to tell how he came to write “Thinking Out Loud” a decade ago.

He reached back, grabbed his guitar from a rack behind the witness stand and explained that writing a song was second nature to him. He said he used his own version of phonetics to create songs so quickly that he could write up to nine in a day. Even last weekend, Sheeran claimed, he wrote 10 songs.

Then he sang just a few words of the pivotal tune, bringing smiles to the faces of some of the spectators in the courtroom of Judge Louis L. Stanton.

“I’m singing out loud,” he sang, loud enough to be heard but not raising decibels in the court.

After he finished singing those words, he spoke a few too, saying “and then words fall in” as he tried to teach the jury his method of creating music. He said he collaborated on the song with a co-writer, Amy Wadge, who wrote the opening chords.

Though he’s performed with some of the world’s great artists and become a regular at music award shows by age 32, he said from the witness stand with his chair tilted toward the jury: “I’m not the world’s most talented guitar player.”

And when he bumped his hand against the witness stand microphone, he said a quick “sorry.”

Then he launched into the song that heirs of Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer on “Let’s Get It On,” say has “striking similarities” and “over common elements” to the famed 1973 Gaye musical treasure.

“When your legs don’t work like they used to,” he sang earnestly, like he might go deeper into the song. Then, after just a few bars, he abruptly placed the guitar back in the rack behind him as his lawyer told the judge it was an appropriate spot to adjourn for the week.

Two days earlier, he had been called to testify by attorneys for the plaintiffs and was adamant in telling jurors that he and Wadge came up with the song without copying anyone else’s music.

He had also said a video that showed he had segued on stage between “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” was not unusual, adding it was “quite simple to weave in and out of songs” that are in the same key.

On Thursday, his lawyer posed friendly questions, eliciting from Sheeran how he became interested in music after joining a church choir with his mother when he was 4.

Sheeran appeared self deprecating as he told his story, saying: “I can’t read music. I’m not classically trained in anything.”

He said he quit school at 17 so he could perform up to three times a night, playing anywhere that would have him, from bingo halls to restaurants to “anywhere nobody was.”

Within a decade, he was performing with some of the biggest names in music, from Taylor Swift to the Rolling Stones, 50 Cent to Eric Clapton.

Before long, he said, he was writing eight or nine songs a day, explaining: “When inspiration hits, you get excited and it just comes out.”

Near the end of his testimony, Sheeran was asked by his lawyer why an expert called by the plaintiffs had tried to show how chords in “Thinking Out Loud” resemble “Let’s Get It On.”

“He was saying that because it helps his argument,” Sheeran said.

The trial resumes Monday.

The “Late Late Show” host, who will end his run on the late-night program after eight years off April 27, says he always wanted Simon to appear on the show’s signature segment.

“I adore him,” he told Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show on April 26.

Corden, who has also said he wanted the artist formerly known as Kanye West to appear on “Carpool Karaoke,” then explained his personal connection to Simon, noting how his “first experience singing in a car” came when he, his sisters and their parents would go on long road trips for vacations.

“They are some of my most joyous memories and the particular album of those road trips was ‘Graceland,’” he said. “And my mom would just be asleep and the four of us would just sing every single word.”

Corden, 44, said “Graceland” had an enormous impact on him, with one song in particular speaking to him.

“For me, that album, I think, might be perfect,” he said.

“You know that song ‘Gumboots’ where he’s got a lyric where he says, ‘You don’t feel you could love me, but I feel you could,’ which I think sums up how any sort of stereotypically unattractive boy at the age of 14 or 15 feels about every girl at their school at the time.

Corden said that line stuck in his head as something that would be ideal for “Carpool Karaoke.”

“I had this idea where I would just give anything to drive around in a car with Paul Simon and I had this idea that I would maybe try and surprise my mom and dad and my sisters and that we’d all get in this car and sing this song, but Paul … he’s hard to get,” he said.

“He’s hard to get — as he should be.”

Simon aside, “Carpool Karaoke” featured some of the biggest names in music sitting in a car with Corden, talking and singing their biggest hits.

Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, the Jonas Brother, Elton John, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles all appeared over the years. His final guest was Adele.

Corden’s run as host of “The Late Late Show” ends when the final episode airs Thursday, April 27, on CBS.

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Those overheard conversations over plates of enchiladas and banana pudding became inspiration for Lambert’s Grammy-winning musical career, teaching her the art of storytelling and entertaining at the same time.

“Some of my first songs were written about some of the stories that they were going through,” Lambert said. “I hadn’t lived it myself yet, but I really absorbed that.”

After nearly two decades in country music and at the height of her career as one of the most award-winning country artists, Lambert is dishing on those recipes — and the stories behind them — from her family and friends in a book called “Y’All Eat Yet? Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin’ Kitchen.”

“It’s really important to surround yourself with people who celebrate the good times and who hold you up through the bad times,” said “The House That Built Me” singer. “That’s what this whole book is about.”

The book, out now on HarperCollins imprint Dey Street Books, is equal parts Lambert’s family memoir, a guide to Texas-style entertaining and a church potluck cookbook.

Get to know Lambert’s grandma “Nonny” and her mom “Bev” and all their colorful female friends through the recipes they’ve swapped and shared: the famous meatloaf that often leads to wedding bells, the whiskey cupcakes and the potini bar (mashed potatoes in a martini glass with all the toppings.) She also teaches the tricks to glamping in her Airstream travel trailer and tubing down the Guadalupe River and her dad offers a primer on seasoning a cast iron pan to perfection.

“Life on the road is tough, and so it makes it that much more special when you get to have a home-cooked meal,” Lambert said. “It’s such a triggering memory. It’s like a perfume or a song.”

Lambert has a lot to celebrate right now as she heads into the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 11 as the reigning entertainer of the year. She’s already the most awarded artist in ACM history and she’s up for the top prize again, as well as breaking another record with her 17th female artist of the year nomination.

“I didn’t really get celebrate with everybody when I won last year, so this will be like, ‘Yay, hurrah! Who’s going to get it next?’” Lambert said of the awards show, which will be held in Frisco, Texas, this year. “I’m really excited that it’s in Texas and I’m just continually thankful for this community and the country music family that has lifted me up all these years and still votes for my records and recognizes my work.”

She’s also now a highly sought-after free agent after leaving her longtime label home Sony Music Nashville this spring. She was just 19 when she signed with the record label and debuted her first Sony record “Kerosene” in 2005.

“It’s a very different landscape from when I started,” Lambert said but noted that she’s already got some collaborations in the works.

“It feels really good to be free and just sort of take a step back and a deep breath and let the creativity lead the decisions,” Lambert said of her future musical plans.

Rihanna is set to star as Smurfette in “The Smurfs Movie” for Paramount network. Along with acting in the film, the “Needed Me” singer will also serve as a producer as well as write and perform original music.

“I tried to get the Papa Smurf part but it didn’t work out.” Rihanna joked after announcing the news at CinemaCon April 27, per Deadline. “This is a delight. Getting to do animation is a fun journey for me. I’m usually front and center with everything, but with this I get to play a part and a role and I get to imagine. I get to show up in my pajamas in my third trimester and get to play a little blue badass.”

She added, “I hope this gives me a little bit of cool points with my kids one day.”

Paramount Pictures’ President and CEO Brian Robbins echoed the 35-year-old’s excitement. “We couldn’t be more excited to have found our Smurfette,” he said in a press release the same day, “in one of the most beloved stars in the world.”

A Look at Rihanna’s Pregnancy Style

This animated film will follow the 2011 “Smurfs” movie and 2013 sequel, “The Smurfs 2,” both starring Neil Patrick Harris along with Katy Perry as Smurfette.

Rihanna’s latest role comes a month after she took the stage at the 2023 Oscars to perform her Best Original Song nominee “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” One month prior, the Grammy winner put on an epic half time performance during Super Bowl LVI, where she subtly announced she’s expecting her second child with A$AP Rocky, by debuting her baby bump. Rihanna’s rep later confirmed the pregnancy to E! News.

The couple are already parents to a baby boy born in May 2022, and Rihanna has since share glimpses of motherhood with her fans.

“When you become a mom,” Rihanna explained during a press conference in February ahead of the football event, “there’s just something that just happens where you feel like you can take on the world, you can do anything and the Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world.”

As for her boyfriend? Well, A$AP Rocky couldn’t help but call the Fenty Beauty owner “the love of my life” during an interview with GQ in 2021.

“She amounts to probably, like, a million of the other ones,” the rapper gushed. “I think when you know, you know. She’s the One.”

However, viewers have a ways to go before The Smurfs Movie warms their hearts as it’s set to hit theaters February 14, 2025.

The 43-year-old recently appeared on SiriusXM’s “The Jess Cagle Show” and spoke about the amount of money he made while in the band.

When host Jess Cagle asked Bass to share the best and worst parts about being “rich and famous really young,” the ‘N Sync singer gave a surprising answer.

Bass replied, “Well, the worst thing is people thinking that we were rich, because we were not. Lou (Pearlman) took all of our money,” referring to the group’s creator and former manager.

He continued, “We were famous, but we were not rich. I made way more money after ‘N Sync than I did during ‘N Sync. He really took (a) majority of all of our stuff.” 

He added that the record label played a role as well. 

“Horrible, horrible deals,” he said. 

But, Bass still looks back on his memories with Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone fondly. 

“To do that, with those guys, it was incredible. And you had some of the best experiences ever. Obviously, it changed my life, led me to so many things I wanted to do in life,” he said.

The television personality mentioned performing with Aerosmith for the Super Bowl halftime show as one of the standout performances in their career. 

“Just a lot of pinch-me moments,” he shared. “Where you’re just like, ‘Really? I got to do that. How freaking cool.’” 

He also credited the band’s support system for helping him stay grounded when he became famous at just 16 years old.

Bass explained, “I’m glad I was in a band because I had four of my brothers that kept you down to earth. If you said anything off the wall, they would just slap you down like, ‘What did you just say?’”

He pointed out that solo artists can be surrounded by yes men who agree to everything. 

“But with a group, we had a great family unit around us, we were held down to earth,” he said. 

However, the quintet faced some scary moments at the peak of their fame. “There would be times where thousands of people would surround your bus or camp out at your hotel,” he said. Some even chased them or tried to rip their hair out.

“You go through some crazy stuff,” he concluded. 

Bass has publicly opened up about the difficulties the band faced and Pearlman’s impact on their careers before. He stopped by TODAY in 2019 to speak about the documentary “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story,” which Bass appeared in and produced.

The film tackled the rise and fall of the music manager, who was also responsible for creating the Backstreet Boys. 

In 2008, Pearlman admitted to defrauding thousands of people, according to Variety. The businessman was operating a $300 million Ponzi scheme. He was later sentenced to 25 years in prison. 

He died in August 2016 at the age of 62 while serving his sentence. 

At the time, Timberlake tweeted, “I hope he found some peace. God bless and RIP, Lou Pearlman.” 

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Springer passed away Thursday at his Chicago-area home, his rep Linda Shafran told NBC News.

At its peak, “The Jerry Springer Show,” was a ratings powerhouse and a U.S. cultural pariah, synonymous with lurid drama. Known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments, the daytime talk show was a favorite American guilty pleasure over its 27-year run, at one point topping Oprah Winfrey’s show.

Springer called it “escapist entertainment,” while others saw the show as contributing to a dumbing-down decline in American social values.

“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,” said Jene Galvin, a family spokesperson and friend of Springer’s since 1970, in a statement. “He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on.”

Here’s a look at photos of the infamous talk show host through the years.

This story will be updated with more photos.

Medusa, Gargoyle and Mantis, who had previously been saved during the current ninth season, faced off during “Battle of the Saved” night on April 26. During Wednesday’s episode, two contestants were unmasked — with one leaving the panelists speechless.

When it came to finding out who Mantis was, Robin Thicke first guessed Dennis Quaid, Nicole Scherzinger thought it was Steve Buscemi, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg figured it was Kevin Bacon, and Ken Jeong said it was Brendan Fraser.

They were all wrong — it was “La Bamba” star Lou Diamond Phillips.

“Robin…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reaction out of you like this,” host Nick Cannon said.

Thicke said, “I love Lou Diamond Phillips. When I was right at that young boy age, two of my favorite movies were ‘La Bamba.’ My god, that movie had a huge impact on me. I listened to the soundtrack daily. And then ‘Young Guns,’ that was my thing.”

The singer added that he was not expecting to see Phillips but all the memories of growing up, watching and admiring the actor crept up. “What an honor to have you here.”

McCarthy Wahlberg also said that she and her husband, Donnie Wahlberg, were recently chatting about him because the actor worked on “Blue Bloods.”

Still stumped, Scherzinger quipped, “We feel really stupid, Nick.”

Phillips, meanwhile, shared that his 15-year-old daughter Indigo made him want to join the show because she and her friend “watched this show religiously.”

“But you guys have had just such wonderful, surprising, ridiculous guests,” he continued, adding in part, “So it has been a joy. It has been a joy to be on his show.”

The panelists also incorrectly guessed who the Gargoyle was. While many guessed athletes, the NFL player under the mask was Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen.

“I was so close,” Thicke said, after guessing fellow Charger Joey Bosa.

Allen shared how he’s “always had a passion” for singing and was bummed that he had to leave the competition.

“Growing up, I always been in choir. My mom made me sing all the time,” the athlete said. “Definitely always had a passion for it. I love singing around the homies, to the ladies, of course.”

He added that he was “way more nervous” being on stage than on a football field. “I was trying not to go home,” he said. “I didn’t want to go home.”

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At its peak, “The Jerry Springer Show” was a ratings powerhouse and a U.S. cultural pariah, synonymous with lurid drama. Known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments, the daytime talk show was a favorite American guilty pleasure over its 27-year run, at one point topping Oprah Winfrey’s show.

Springer called it “escapist entertainment,” while others saw the show as contributing to a dumbing-down decline in American social values.

“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,” said Jene Galvin, a family spokesperson and friend of Springer’s since 1970, in a statement. “He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on.”

Springer died peacefully at home in suburban Chicago after a brief illness, the statement said

On his Twitter profile, Springer jokingly declared himself as “Talk show host, ringmaster of civilization’s end.” He also often had told people, tongue in cheek, that his wish for them was “may you never be on my show.”

After more than 4,000 episodes, the show ended in 2018, never straying from its core salaciousness: Some of its last episodes had such titles as “Stripper Sex Turned Me Straight,” “Stop Pimpin’ My Twin Sister,” and “Hooking Up With My Therapist.”

In a “Too Hot For TV” video released as his daily show neared 7 million viewers in the late 1990s, Springer offered a defense against disgust.

“Look, television does not and must not create values, it’s merely a picture of all that’s out there — the good, the bad, the ugly,” Springer said, adding: “Believe this: The politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be.”

He also contended that the people on his show volunteered to be subjected to whatever ridicule or humiliation awaited them.

Gerald Norman Springer was born Feb. 13, 1944, in a London underground railway station being used as a bomb shelter. His parents, Richard and Margot, were German Jews who fled to England during the Holocaust, in which other relatives were killed in Nazi gas chambers. They arrived in the United States when their son was 5 and settled in the Queens borough of New York City, where Springer got his first Yankees baseball gear on his way to becoming a lifelong fan.

He studied political science at Tulane University and got a law degree from Northwestern University. He was active in politics much of his adult life, mulling a run for governor of Ohio as recently as 2017.

He entered the arena as an aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign. Springer, working for a Cincinnati law firm, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970 before being elected to city council in 1971.

In 1974 — in what The Cincinnati Enquirer reported as “an abrupt move that shook Cincinnati’s political community” — Springer resigned. He cited “very personal family considerations,” but what he didn’t mention was a vice probe involving prostitution. In a subsequent admission that could have been the basis for one of his future shows, Springer said he had paid prostitutes with personal checks.

Then 30, he had married Micki Velton the previous year. The couple had a daughter, Katie, and divorced in 1994.

Springer quickly bounced back politically, winning a council seat in 1975 and serving as mayor in 1977. He later became a local television politics reporter with popular evening commentaries. He and co-anchor Norma Rashid eventually helped build NBC affiliate WLWT-TV’s broadcast into the Cincinnati market’s top-rated news show.

Springer began his talk show in 1991 with more of a traditional format, but after he left WLWT in 1993, it got a sleazy makeover.

TV Guide ranked it No. 1 on a list of “Worst Shows in the History of Television,” but it was ratings gold. It made Springer a celebrity who would go on to host a liberal radio talk show and “America’s Got Talent,” star in a movie called “Ringmaster,” and compete on “Dancing With the Stars.”

“With all the joking I do with the show, I’m fully aware and thank God every day that my life has taken this incredible turn because of this silly show,” Springer told Cincinnati Enquirer media reporter John Kiesewetter in 2011.

Well in advance of Donald Trump’s political rise from reality TV stardom, Springer mulled a Senate run in 2003 that he surmised could draw on “nontraditional voters,” people “who believe most politics are bull.”

“I connect with a whole bunch of people who probably connect more to me right now than to a traditional politician,” Springer told the AP at the time. He opposed the war on Iraq and favored expanding public healthcare, but ultimately did not run.

Springer also spoke often of the country he came to age 5 as “a beacon of light for the rest of world.”

“I have no other motivation but to say I love this country,” Springer said to a Democratic gathering in 2003.

Springer hosted a nationally syndicated “Judge Jerry” show in 2019 and continued to speak out on whatever was on his mind in a podcast, but his power to shock had dimmed in the new era of reality television and combative cable TV talk shows.

“He was lapped not only by other programs but by real life,” David Bianculli, a television historian and professor at Monmouth University, said in 2018.

Despite the limits Springer’s show put on his political aspirations, he embraced its legacy. In a 2003 fund-raising infomercial ahead of a possible U.S. Senate run the following year, Springer referenced a quote by then National Review commentator Jonah Goldberg, who warned of new people brought to the polls by Springer, including “slack-jawed yokels, hicks, weirdos, pervs and whatnots.”

In the informercial, Springer referred to the quote and talked about wanting to reach out to “regular folks … who weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”

___

Sewell, a former Associated Press journalist who retired in 2021, was the primary writer of this obituary. AP journalist David Bauder in New York and former AP journalist Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio, contributed reporting.

“In the early morning hours at approximately 4:31am on 4/20/2023 our family received a tragic phone call from a family member who was frantically screaming and crying…on the other end of the line….Ashten is dying…Ashten is dying…” her loved ones wrote on a GoFundMe for her on April 25. “After arriving at the hospital shortly after the phone call our family continued living a nightmare as we were informed that her health and wellbeing had continued to decline in a downward spiral for the worse after suffering from a cardiac arrest.”

The family added that the model’s death followed a “medical procedure that took a turn for the worse.”

No further details were provided. Gourkani’s family included a loving tribute to her in the message.

“If you knew Ashten you knew that everyone mattered to her,” they wrote. “She was such a caring and loving free spirit that always took the time to bring a smile to anyone’s face she crossed paths with. She was the kind of person that would kneel down and talk to children at eye level, she searched for the lonely person in the corner and made them feel special as she has such a gift of connecting with people.”

The family addressed the late model directly in their tribute. “Christina Ashten Gourkani I hope there is a place in heaven where you can feel the amount of our grief and the emptiness of our broken hearts, that we feel without you in our lives,” they wrote. “We love you so much Chrissy.”

The model’s loved ones are trying to raise donations to help pay for her funeral.

“We ask in this time of mourning our loss & disbelief that people can come together to help our family make it through this, when there is not enough strength,” their message stated. “We are grateful for the support that you are able to provide to our family as we lay Christina Ashten Gourkani to eternal peace.”

The “Citadel” actress recently gave rare insight into her family with husband Nick Jonas and daughter Malti, recalling how the musician provided support for her upon learning the baby girl, who was born via surrogate, had arrived prematurely.

“I remember he just held me by my shoulders, and I said, ‘Just tell me what to do, because I don’t know what to do,'” Chopra told Today‘s Hoda Kotb for a Spring 2023 cover issue. “And he’s like, ‘Just get into the car with me.’ And we drove to the hospital. She was born, and from the moment she took her first breath to now, she’s never been without one of us, ever.”

Malti would end up staying more than 100 days in the NICU, a period of time where Chopra said she “had to be her strength as her mom.”

Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra’s Family Photos With Daughter Malti

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Priyanka Chopra Jonas Wants Daughter Malti Marie To Love Hanging Out With Her

Apr 18

Priyanka Chopra Jonas Gushes About Nick Jonas's Support Of ‘Citadel'

“I don’t think it was our test. I think it was her test,” she shared. “I realized very, very early that I did not have the luxury to be scared or to be weak, because she was scared and weak… I needed to make her feel at every given moment that she’s not alone.”

Now, 15-month-old Malti is doing well: Chopra told Today that her baby girl is still comforted by the Hindi lullabies that she sang to her in the NICU, which are also the same tunes that the “Quantico” alum’s mom devoted to her in her childhood.

As for Malti’s future, Chopra said she and Jonas want Malti to be bilingual in Hindi and English.

Though Chopra’s family life blossoms more day by day, it wasn’t what she initially imagined when she met Jonas, who she said she underestimated at first.

“I didn’t give it much of a chance because, I was like, ‘He’s 25 years old, he’s a rockstar. I want to get married, I want to settle down, I want to have a baby.’ I was 35 at the time,” she explained. “I wanted stability, and I didn’t give Nick enough credit until I went out with him on our first date. We spent the whole evening together, and I realized my husband is just like an old soul. He’s stability in human form.”

After being together for over five years, Chopra only has burnin’ love for her man.

“He’s my cheerleader,” Chopra said of the Jonas Brothers artist. “He’s the most secure man I’ve ever been with. He gets extremely excited at my wins. He takes off my extensions at the end of the night. He fixes my dress when I walk off stage and makes sure it looks right when I’m on the carpet. He brings me my coffee first thing in the morning.”

And he continues to be the whole package.

“He’s just so even-tempered, can handle anything thrown at him,” she added, “And also has the ability to be vulnerable with me. I feel safe with my husband. I wish that for everyone.”

E!, this television station and Today are all part of the NBCUniversal family.

Days after Pennsylvania State Police announced an arrest warrant for Brandon “Bam” Margera, the reality TV star surrendered to face charges that he assaulted his brother in their Chester County home.

An NBC10 photojournalist captured Margera arriving Thursday morning at a district court to face arraignment on assault and terroristic threats charges.

A judge arraigned the reality star and he was then released on signature bond after bail was set at $50,000, according to court records. Margera faces a preliminary hearing in May.

Margera’s attorney Michael van der Veen spoke Thursday morning as he left court with the reality star after Margera pleaded not guilty.

“My client is presumed innocent,” van der Veen said. “The rumors that have been being passed around by his brother through this last week have been nothing short of defamation and that will be handled in another courthouse.”

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In a written statement, van der Veen added “the wild rumors regarding his behavior this week are absolutely false. He is in good health and in good spirits.”

State police later tweeted that before the court hearing, Margera surrendered to the Avondale barracks. He had a mugshot taken.

State police Troop J originally announced Margera’s arrest warrant in a tweet. Police said Monday troopers from the Avondale station responded to the 400 block of Hickory Hill Road in Pocopson Township, Pennsylvania, around 11 a.m. for a domestic disturbance report.

Margera’s brother, Jesse Margera, told police that Bam Margera had pounded on and kicked his locked bedroom door that morning, and punched him in the eye, nose and ear during a later confrontation in the kitchen, according to court documents. Among the accusations laid out in the complaint was that Bam Margera urinated in the kitchen sink.

Jesse Margera said he’d also found a threatening handwritten note signed “Bam,” a police affidavit said.

Margera, star of “Jackass,” “Viva La Bam” and other projects and a former pro skateboarder, fled the scene into a wooded area before troopers arrived, police said. It was unclear where he spent the past several days.

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Broadway’s Lea Salonga, one of the night’s entertainers, confessed as she arrived that she was “freaking out” over the whole experience, allowing, “It feels like being in the middle of a fairy tale.” Kim, for her part, served up a classic understatement as she strolled in, telling reporters, ”I heard the food’s going to be very good.” Jolie wasn’t inclined to chat as she arrived in a vintage Chanel jacket and a flowing cream gown, but her date, 21-year-old son Maddox, at least offered that his favorite thing about Seoul was “the people.”

A smattering of politicians made the guest list, too, and most were determinedly on message, talking a lot of shop. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., held forth on infrastructure, debt reduction and the budget. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., talked abortion rights. Former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, a big Democratic donor from Illinois, talked up plans for the Democratic convention in Chicago in 2024, promising, “of course” it will go well.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, proudly showed off her traditional hanbok gown, saying it was important to showcase cultural diversity. She added that the big challenge was “not to trip over it.”

Also among the nearly 200 guests were Arthur Blank, a co-founder of Home Depot; “Pachinko” author Min Jin Lee; and former Major League Baseball pitcher Chan Ho Park. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah also attended, as did the governors of Delaware, New Jersey and Vermont.

On a perfect spring evening, guests entered the White House by strolling through the Jacqueline Kennedy garden in the East Wing and being directed to a cocktail reception before dinner in the East Room, where tables were topped with towering centerpieces of cherry tree boughs in full bloom. On the menu: crabcakes, beef ribs and banana splits.

While most guests were strolling in through the garden, Biden and wife Jill welcomed Yoon and wife Kim Keon Hee on a red carpet on the steps of the North Portico, where the president flashed a thumbs-up for the assembled cameras. Kim wore a cream-colored jacket over her gown, which was also creamy. Jill Biden wore a mauve sheath gown by Reem Acra.

In their toasts before dinner, President Biden said he believed Yoon’s visit had “brought two nations even closer together.”

Yoon, for his part, nodded to Biden’s Irish heritage and love of Irish poets.

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“There’s an old saying, and Mr. President, this one is also Irish, that goes: A good friend is like a four-leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have,” Yoon said, offering a toast to our “ironclad alliance.”

Guests seated at the head table with the presidents and first ladies included Jolie and her son, the Gaineses, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Chloe Kim.

The first lady, who oversaw planning for the administration’s second state dinner, recruited Korean American celebrity chef Edward Lee to whip up a Korean-inspired menu. Lee is known for putting his Korean stamp on American food.

“It’s not traditional Korean food but just gives you a little hint of Korean flavors,” he said this week as the White House previewed the dinner setup.

The crabcake appetizer was served with a cabbage, kohlrabi, fennel and cucumber slaw dressed with a vinaigrette made using gochujang, a red chili paste and a bowl of chilled yellow squash soup. The braised beef short rib main course was paired with sorghum-glazed carrots and served on a bed of grits made from butter beans instead of corn.

Dessert is a deconstructed banana split, an American classic, featuring lemon bar ice cream, caramelized bananas, fresh berries and mint ginger snap cookie crumble drizzled with a caramel sauce infused with doenjang, a fermented soybean paste.

Guests were ushered to the State Dining Room at the other end of the State Floor after dinner for entertainment by Broadway stars Salonga, Norm Lewis and Jessica Vosk.

Lewis, for all his experience, said he still gets nervous performing at big events.

“Oh God, always nerves,” he said. “But you know what? It’s for a good cause and I’m very excited to be here.” He sang ”This is the Moment” from “Jekyll and Hyde.” Yoon got in on the action, singing a rendition of “American Pie,” one of his favorite songs, to raucous applause.

Biden then surprised Yoon with the gift of a guitar signed by Don McLean, who wrote “American Pie.”

One guest who displayed not one ounce of nerves: Schumer, D-N.Y., who wore a navy business suit rather than a tuxedo, and shrugged, “This is as tux-ey as I get.”

Chip Gaines demurred when asked if he had any decorating tips for the White House, but added that for wife Joanna, “the white interior and exterior is just her thing.” Joanna Gaines’ mother is Korean.

A state visit, including an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn and a sparkly state dinner, is the highest diplomatic honor the U.S. bestows on its closest allies. Yoon was visiting as the U.S. and South Korea mark the 70th year of an alliance that began at the end of the Korean War and committed the U.S. to help South Korea defend itself, particularly from North Korea. Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are currently based in South Korea.

Biden’s first invitation for a state visit went to France last year and President Emmanuel Macron was toasted at a black-tie dinner last December with more than 300 guests inside a heated pavilion erected on the south grounds of the White House.

Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey stepped out in style for the April 26 premiere of Tom’s new series Love & Death, marking the actors’ first red carpet appearance since they welcomed their first child together, a baby girl named Matilda. (Their last red carpet outing was at the Critics Choice Awards in January.)

For the April 26 occasion, Pelphrey looked sharp in Brioni. Meanwhile, Cuoco donned an eye-catching blue dress with an aww-worthy piece of jewelry: a necklace that read “Matilda.”

Not only did Cuoco keep her daughter close to her heart on the red carpet, but she also gave fans a new look at the little one on her Instagram Story that same day. As seen in the snap, Cuoco and Pelphrey posed poolside in their red carpet looks while holding the little one. The Big Bang Theory star added the words, “Date Night” to the sweet photo.

Inside Pregnant Kaley Cuoco’s Baby Shower

Their glamorous parent’s night out comes close to one month after the pair welcomed their firstborn on March 30. Two days after her arrival, The Flight Attendant star took the news to Instagram, writing in an April 1 post, “Introducing, Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey, the new light of our lives! We are overjoyed and grateful for this little miracle.”

Earlier this month, Pelphrey gave E! News exclusive insight on how parenthood has been treating them.

“It’s so beautiful. I was excited for it and you obviously have some idea of what it might be and how it cool it might be. Nothing compares to the actual feeling,” he said. “Even if she’s fussy or you haven’t slept as much, when holding Matilda and she makes those little noises and coos, your heart just melts.”

Read more of his interview here.

Jaime Brugada Valdez, 22, of Huntington Park, was found in the shower area of the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Despite life-saving efforts, he died at a prison medical facility.

The agency didn’t detail his injuries but said his death was being investigated as a homicide.

“They said it was a stabbing to the neck,” Valdez’s attorney, Nicholas Rosenberg, told the Los Angeles Times.

Suede signed to Atlantic Records in 2021, and released his most recent album “Parkside Baby” last September, the Times said.

The Monterey County prison houses more than 4,000 minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Valdez was sent there after being sentenced in Riverside County last December to serve two years and eight months on two charges of being a convicted felon in possession of a gun, according to state corrections officials.

While the “Wedding Crashers” actress and “Borat” actor are not strangers to life in the public eye, the pair are largely private when it comes to life with their three kids, Olive, 15, Elula, 12, and Montgomery, 8. The decision to keep them out of the limelight is one that Isla has thought about a lot.

“It’s unfair on them!” Fisher explained during an April 26 appearance on “Lorraine,” as seen in a clip published by the Daily Mail. “Kids deserve a normal childhood. I want them to be outdoors and play and run around [and] not feel self-conscious.”

Inside Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Date Night at the 2021 Oscars

And Fisher’s made a point of not posting about her kids on social media or taking them to premieres and other Hollywood events.

“If you speak about your children or if you take them to a red carpet event, you can’t be litigious later on when there is a picture of them in something and say, ‘hey, they deserve anonymity,’ but they do,” Fisher told Today Parents in 2017. “They have rights, too. It’s a very conscious decision and truly I would feel really disgusting about myself if I used my family to sell something. It wouldn’t sit right with me. It doesn’t line up with my values.”

While the “Confessions of a Shopaholic” star prefers to keep the topic of her children private, she doesn’t shy away from sharing about her marriage to Baron Cohen, who she has been in a relationship with for over 20 years.

Reflecting on the advice she would give to other couples, Fisher exclusively told E! News in June, “I don’t want to stand on a soapbox and advise anybody,” before noting, “if you marry someone that you have a really good friendship with, everything else seems to fall into place.”

At the time, Fisher shared that she still has giddy feelings towards her husband after two decades together.

“You still get butterflies in your stomach and people sort of tell you that wears off after a few years,” she said. “But when you’re with the right person, actually it just doesn’t.”

In fact, he took it quite heavily.

The movie follows the titular character stepping back into the boxing ring after a lengthy retirement. Foreman was an Olympic gold medalist and heavyweight champion in his heyday, and he reclaimed his title status once he returned to the sport.

Foreman underwent a dramatic physical transformation between his two boxing stints, and Davis did the same while filming the new movie.

Davis told NBC that he went from 225 pounds to 280. While the film’s studio was prepared to help him appear heavier on screen, Davis was committed to actually adding the weight.

“They had called me and said, ‘Hey Khris, we were thinking of making a fat suit for you,'” Davis said. “And I said ‘Here, give me five weeks. Come back in five weeks, see my body and if you see my body and you still think I need a fat suit, fine. But before you get that fat suit, let me show you what I can do.'”

Davis went on to gain 50 pounds in those five weeks and was up to 280 within eight weeks. He said he was able to pull off the dramatic change by eating 7,000 calories a day.

“I ate all day,” he said. “So I would eat a 1,200-calorie meal and all day I’m snacking on 700 calories here. It would be like I would stop snacking, and a half hour later I’m drinking a protein shake that’s 700 calories. And then an hour later I’m eating another 700-calorie snack. And then an hour later I’m going back to a 1,200-calorie meal.”

Davis didn’t just want to put on weight, though — he wanted to put on weight that wouldn’t become permanent. He stuck to a non-dairy, non-sugar diet during the process and was able to pull it off.

“I was down to gain the weight,” he said. “What I didn’t want the weight to do was to stick, so I wanted to do it as clean as possible.”

The commitment to eating 7,000 calories per day got harder and harder for Davis.

His solution? Stop eating and start drinking.

“I wasn’t able to put food down at one point, so I would have to chew my food and drink water to trick my body into thinking that I was drinking rather than eating. … Sometimes it would take me two hours to get down one plate of food, but by that time, I had to eat my 700-calorie snack, so I’m just shoving food down my mouth non-stop.”

As if managing the weight wasn’t difficult enough strictly from a food perspective, there was another major hurdle: boxing.

To properly embody Foreman, Davis spent around half his day training and had to make sure the rigorous cardio didn’t shed the pounds he was working hard to put on.

“If you’re throwing punches for 12 hours a day, you’re going to lose a lot of weight,” he said. “You can lose 10 pounds just sweating it off that day. So I had to manage my weight that way while filming, while training.”

Davis’ full body of work will be on display when “Big George Foreman” opens in theaters on Thursday.

On April 20, a video by the dairy industry marketing firm Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) starring Aubrey Plaza was posted on YouTube, social media and Plaza’s own Instagram. In the ad, which has been viewed over 3.4 million times on the platform, the upcoming “Agatha: Coven of Chaos” actor attempts to sell her audience on a product called “Wood Milk.”

“Have you ever looked at a tree and thought, ‘Can I drink this?’” Plaza says at the start of the video. She stares at a tree in an orchard pensively as upbeat music plucks away. “I did.”

Plaza then introduces herself as the co-founder of Wood Milk, “the world’s first and only milk made from wood.” As she speaks, the actor can be seen posing serenely with logs, sprinkling herself with wood shavings and photographing trees up close in that “she’s doing something odd but in a captivating fashion” Plaza is known for.

“Our Wood Milk is bottled right here in the forest where the trees hit the dirt, which locks in the flavors like cherry, maple and of course mahogany,” Plaza says as asterisks appear on screen, reiterating the flavors as indeed wooden ones.

The ad is revealed by the end to be a parody concocted by MilkPEP, the same firm that came up with the “Got Milk?” campaign. This becomes a little more apparent after Plaza takes a swig of Wood Milk, leaving behind the trademark milk mustache — except it’s a little chunkier, with bits of wood pulp in it.

“Is wood milk real? Absolutely not. Only real milk is real.” Plaza says in closing. “Then what did I invest in?!”

Although Plaza has been a frequent source of the internet’s love and affection, enjoying a growing status as both a millenial and Gen-Z icon and frequent fancam subject, much of the response to the ad on social media was less than glowing.

The prevailing sentiment from those in comments sections is disappointment in the actor for hitching herself to Big Dairy’s wooden wagon, so to speak.

“The fact that this is actually a weirdly covert ad for the dairy industry is bonkers, aubrey plaza dairy propagandist,” tweeted one person.

“I’m so heartbroken y’all. Aubrey Plaza out here doing ads for the dairy industry trying to make fun of plant milks by shilling “wood milk”. The desperation,” another person tweeted, adding a sobbing emoji. “Aubrey how could you!”

“This Aubrey Plaza wood milk thing has made me so mad. It’s a marketing campaign for dairy milk paid for by got milk? who are a dairy industry marketing lobby,” wrote another Twitter user.  

“Aubrey plaza working on an ad paid for by the dairy industry to make fun of plant based milks since more people have realized the impact large scale dairy farming has on the planet and arent buying their products is… f—ed up tbh,” someone else tweeted.

Representatives for Plaza did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“In a world where dairy milk is one of many choices, our fictitious Wood Milk brand is designed to encourage consumers to educate themselves on their beverage options and the differences in the nutritional profiles within,” Yin Woon Rani, MilkPEP’s CEO, tells TODAY.com. “While you may be able to make milk out of anything these days, not everything is created equal. We welcome the conversation and response.”

The critique has reached such a fever pitch that, because Plaza turned off the comments on her Instagram post of the ad, people are commenting on Plaza’s other, non-milk-related posts to express their dismay.

“Really disappointed that you’re not only endorsing dairy milk but also participating in an ad that mocks plant milks,” commented one user on Plaza’s Instagram on a post unrelated to the campaign. “Unfollowing.”

“‘Real’ milk has real victims,” one person commented on one of her unrelated Instagram posts. “Seems kinda cowardly to poke fun at non dairy alternatives and then turn off the comments.”

Still, there are those who have applauded the campaign, taking to social media to defend Plaza or share their positive feelings about the ad.

“I will drink any milk you tell me to, Aubrey plaza,” wrote a commenter on the TikTok of the ad, where several commenters are also calling Plaza “mommy.”

“She had me considering it for a second there……” someone tweeted.

“my new favorite national holiday,” wrote another Twitter user, who also made a fancam of Plaza using the ad, using the hashtag #woodmilknation, which has sprung up from fans in response to the ad.

As for who is leading the #woodmilknation charge, our best guess is Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman’s “Parks and Recreation” character), who would most definitely be applauding Plaza (April Ludgate) on her campaign.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Vegan milk: Are milk alternatives really healthier than dairy milk?
• The best plant-based milks to try right now
• Plant-based NotMilk says it mimics cow’s milk. We put it to a taste test

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Netflix announced on Wednesday that its hit sci-fi series will be returning with new episodes in June.

The streaming giant debuted a season six teaser trailer for the upcoming “Black Mirror” installments featuring a loaded group of new cast members. Aaron Paul, Salma Hayek Pinault, Kate Mara, Michael Cera and Zazie Beetz are among the big names that will star in the new season.

Check out the teaser trailer below (Warning: Content is NSFW):

The official season six episode count and release date have yet to be announced.

“Black Mirror” debuted in 2011 and has not released any new episodes since season five in 2019. Along with five seasons, the series also released an interactive feature, “Bandersnatch,” in 2018 that allowed viewers to create their own adventure.

Now, show creator Charlie Booker says fans are in for the most unpredictable season yet.

“I’ve always felt that ‘Black Mirror’ should feature stories that are entirely distinct from one another, and keep surprising people — and myself — or else what’s the point?” Booker told Tudum. “It should be a series that can’t be easily defined, and can keep reinventing itself.”

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Harry Belafonte’s son, David Belafonte, is paying tribute to the late entertainment legend and civil rights activist.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have said goodbye to our beloved dad, father-in-law, and grandpa, the beyond amazing Harry Belafonte,” the younger Belafonte said in a statement to TODAY.

The grieving son went on to say that he and his wife, Malena, and their two children, Amadeus and Sarafina, were heartbroken over the groundbreaking singer and actor’s passing.

“To the world he was a legend, but to us he was Dad, Harry, Farfar — which means Grandpa in Danish — and he will always mean the world to us. We are heartbroken to have lost such a big presence in our lives and we will honor him in everything we do,” the family said.

“His legacy is passed on to his four children, Adrienne, Shari, David, and Gina, as well as his five grandchildren, Rachel Blue, Brian, Maria, Sarafina, and Amadeus, all of whom he was so incredibly proud of,” the statement continued.

The family noted that Harry Belafonte also leaves behind his “third and current” wife, Pamela, as well as his ex-wife Julie, whom they jokingly called the singer’s “sparring partner for 50+ years and the mother of his youngest children David and Gina.”

The family concluded by writing, “We will miss him terribly!”

Harry Belafonte died of heart failure on April at his home in New York City, with his wife, Pamela, by his side, his spokesperson confirmed to NBC News. He was 96.

Belafonte was famous for popularizing the calypso style of music with his groundbreaking 1956 album, “Calypso,” which featured the hits “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.”

Throughout his career, Belafonte earned two Grammy Awards and a Tony Award for best actor in a featured role in a musical for “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac” in 1954. The first Black producer in television, Belafonte also earned an Emmy Award in 1960 for his special “Tonight with Belafonte.”

He obtained much-coveted EGOT status in 2015, when he was honored with a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards.

Belafonte was also a longtime civil rights activist and a close friend and confidante of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., helping King organize the 1963 March on Washington.

In addition to son David and daughter Gina, Belafonte shared two daughters, Adrienne Biesemeyer and actor Shari Belafonte, with his first wife, Marguerite Byrd, whom he was married to from 1948 until 1957.

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Bale, a Wales great who retired after the World Cup at age 33, offered his congratulations to Wrexham’s celebrity owners following the team’s promotion to the fourth tier of English soccer at the weekend.

In a response to Bale’s video message, McElhenney wrote on Twitter: “Hey Gareth Bale let’s play golf, where I totally won’t spend 4 hours trying to convince you to un-retire for one last magical season.”

Bale, a passionate golfer in his spare time, replied “Depends what course…” He also tagged in the R&A, which organizes the British Open from its base at the home of golf in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Reynolds weighed in on Wednesday, tweeting: “I will shave a professional-grade golf course into Rob’s back if you’ll give Wrexham a season.”

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The pursuit of Bale looks a long shot, given he is three months into retirement, has never played at such a low level in soccer and would likely command a massive salary. He also was born in Cardiff in south Wales, whereas Wrexham is based in the north of the principality.

McElhenney and Reynolds are dreamers, though. Just look at what they are doing at Wrexham, a club on its knees before the 2021 takeover of the A-listers.

The owners were in tears after Wrexham beat Boreham Wood 3-1 on Saturday to clinch automatic promotion from the National League.

During an April 24 appearance on Josh Peck and Ben Soffer’s “Good Guys” podcast, Stamos said he got the girls fired early on in the “Full House” run when they wouldn’t stop crying on set.

“I did it,” he said.

Stamos explained that the Olsen twins were 11 months old at the time. He recalled filming a scene in the pilot episode in which he and Dave Coulier, who played Joey Gladstone in the show, had to change baby Michelle, portrayed by the Olsens, while Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) was out.

“We’re carrying the baby downstairs and I think I was holding her on the armpits and Dave was holding her little feet, I think. And we take her into the kitchen and we hosed her down, we put a fan on her, wrapped her up in paper towels. She was screaming,” he said. “Both of them, they wanted to be anywhere else but there, and so did I. They were 11 months old, and God bless them. And they kept switching.”

Stamos said things got so bad that he just “couldn’t deal with it” anymore.

“I said, ‘This is not going to work, guys,’ and I screamed 10 times to get rid of them. ‘I can’t work like this,'” he said. “… And so they got rid of them.”

Stamos said the show replaced them with two redheaded kids who “weren’t attractive.” But Stamos eventually realized the show needed the Olsen twins on set.

“I said, ‘Bring the Olsens back. These kids are terrible!'” he recalled.

“It was a day or something, we tried the other kids, it didn’t work,” Stamos added.

When asked if the girls’ parents knew that he was the reason they were fired and then rehired, he said he didn’t know.

TODAY.com has reached out to representatives for the Olsen twins and the show’s production companies for comment.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• How ‘Full House’ stars are commemorating the 35th anniversary of the beloved sitcom
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Jacob Lewis, 20, died on April 22 after being hit by a suspected drunk driver while leaving a Taylor Swift concert, according to local outlet KPRC. He was reportedly driving back from the Eras Tour show in Houston, Texas with sister April Bancroft when they ran into car issues.

The 20-year-old was driving a Buick LaCrosse on South U.S. Highway 59 around 1:15 a.m. when the “vehicle became disabled,” according to an April 24 press release from Houston police that didn’t name the victim. Authorities said he stepped out to push their car when he was hit by Alan Bryant Hayes, 34, driving a Volkswagen Beetle. Lewis died at the scene.

Lewis’ dad Steve Lewis told KPRC that Hayes “stopped and got out and helped my daughter pull my son, pull Jacob from under his driver-side tire.” He said the alleged suspect then fled, adding, “Only after that did he get back in his car and drive off and leave.”

Hayes was eventually taken into custody and charged with a DWI, as well as failure to stop and render aid, police said. E! News has reached out to the Harris Police Department for lawyer information for Hayes but has not heard back.

Taylor Swift Through the Years

In the wake of his death, Swift’s fans have been coming together to pay their respects with $13 donations—the singer’s lucky number—to Lewis’ GoFundMe page, as well as share lyrics from her emotional songs “Long Live” and “Bigger Than the Whole Sky.” The donations have surpassed $120,000 as of April 25.

Lewis’ sister told KPRC how she was coping with the unimaginable loss of her brother. “It was the night I had been looking forward to for a very long time and turned for the absolute worst,” Bancroft said. “What I hope will be the worst thing I have to live through.”

She also reflected on the tragedy on Twitter, resharing a video of the siblings at the April 21 concert. “I cannot even describe the pain I feel at this moment for the loss of my brother,” she tweeted. “We loved you so much @taylorswift13. Thank you for making this our last memory together.”

In light of the support she’s received from fans, Bancroft added, “I cannot express the overwhelming happiness and gratitude from every #Swiftie out there. Thank you thank you thank you. I will get to your messages eventually if I haven’t already, your words have inspired me through my day so much.”

Lewis was taking a gap year from Sam Houston State University when he died, according to KPRC. He was passionate about Pokémon, Dungeons & Dragons and the Black Lives Matter movement, per his Twitter page.

“He was a really talented actor and singer,” Lewis’ dad told CBS’ KHOU11 News. “[He] loved being on stage and performing. He was a good friend to a lot of people around him and just a really good kid.”

Sheeran, 32, was called to testify in the civil trial by the heirs of Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer on the 1973 soul classic. The family has accused the English star of violating their copyright, claiming his 2014 hit bore “striking similarities” and “overt common elements” to the famed Gaye track.

Sheeran, in a dark suit and tie and his trademark ginger locks, was adamant that he had come up with the song himself, sparring at times with the plaintiff’s attorney, Keisha Rice, on the subject of “independent creation.”

In response to video played in the courtroom, which showed the musician segueing on stage between the two songs, Sheeran noted it was very common for musicians to weave other artists’ songs into their live shows.

Earlier in the day, a lawyer for Townsend’s heirs, Ben Crump, had told jurors that the merging of the two songs was tantamount to “a confession.”

“We have a smoking gun,” he said of the concert footage showing Sheeran flipping between the two songs.

Crump said the case was about “giving credit where credit is due.”

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Ed Sheeran Apr 24

Did Ed Sheeran Copy Marvin Gaye's Hit ‘Let's Get It On'? A Jury Will Decide

Sheeran looked on as his lawyer, Ilene Farkas, insisted that Sheeran and a co-writer, Amy Wadge, wrote their song independently and did not steal from Townsend and Gaye.

She said they “created this heartfelt song without copying ‘Let’s Get It On.’”

The chord progression and basic building blocks in Sheeran’s song are frequently used, and didn’t appear first in “Let’s Get It On,” his lawyer said.

“Let’s Get It On” has been heard in countless films and commercials and garnered hundreds of millions of streams, spins and radio plays since it came out in 1973. “Thinking Out Loud” won a Grammy for song of the year in 2016.

The lawsuit was filed in 2017. The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.

Townsend, who also wrote the 1958 R&B doo-wop hit “For Your Love,” was a singer, songwriter and lawyer. He died in 2003.

Kathryn Townsend Griffin, his daughter, is the plaintiff leading the lawsuit.

“I think Mr. Sheeran is a great artist with a great future,” Griffin said. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I have to protect my father’s legacy.”

Born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, the senior royal was given the title Duchess of Cambridge by the late Queen Elizabeth II on her wedding day. Her other less commonly used titles include Countess of Strathearn and Baroness Carrickfergus.

With the death of her grandmother-in-law last year, the princess’s title changed once again to her current one, Princess of Wales.

Now, with the coronation for her father-in-law, King Charles III, just days away, a new era for the United Kingdom will begin. This includes a future in which Catherine’s husband, William, Prince of Wales — now first in line to the throne — could become king.

But should Prince William become king one day, will Catherine’s title change to “queen?” Read more below to find out!

Queen Catherine or queen consort?

In February 2022, as part of the celebrations for her 70th anniversary on the throne, Queen Elizabeth gave the world direction on how to address a person whose spouse becomes a monarch.

“When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me,” the queen said in a statement at the time. “And it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”

Assuming that Charles will one day make a similar announcement for his own son and daughter-in-law and also keep with tradition, Catherine will also take on the title of Queen Consort of The United Kingdom.

What differentiates a queen from a queen consort?

According to the official website of the British Royal Family, a consort is a person whose role is to “provide companionship and moral and practical support to the Monarch.” Unlike a king or queen, a consort “does not hold a formal position in the structure of government.”

In 2022, NBC royal commentator Daisy McAndrew explained the difference in an email to TODAY, writing that a “queen consort is a woman who married a man who is king.” Meanwhile, a “queen is a woman who is born to be queen and is head of state — not the wife of a monarch.”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Royals release photo (taken by Kate) of Queen Elizabeth with many of her great-grandchildren
• Camilla and Kate Middleton match in royal blue for first Easter Service of King Charles’ reign
• Here’s your first look at Prince William and Kate Middleton in ‘The Crown’

Daniel Radcliffe, 33, and his partner of more than a decade, Erin Darke, have welcomed their first baby, a rep for the “Harry Potter” star confirmed to TODAY.com.

The news comes after Radcliffe and Darke were seen walking around New York City with a stroller.

The couple did not share any further details about their baby’s name or arrival date.

Radcliffe and Darke, who met while filming the 2013 movie “Kill Your Darlings,” confirmed in March that they were expecting their first child. 

Darke is also known for her roles in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Good Girls Revolt” and “Dietland.”

The couple generally keep their personal life private, although Radcliffe has spoken in the past about his relationship with Darke, calling her the “love of my life” in a 2019 People TV interview.

He also revealed how their on-screen chemistry in “Kill Your Darlings” transformed into a real-life romance.

“Our characters are meeting and flirting with each other, so there is this sweet record of us just meeting for the first time and flirting,” he said.

He also opened up about his close bond with Darke in a 2014 interview with Us Weekly. 

“I think that’s the kind of relationship I always aspire to have with someone I’m in a relationship with. You want that person to be your best friend,” he said. “In the case of Erin, we definitely are.”

Radcliffe is not the first former “Harry Potter” child star to become a parent. 

Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the beloved franchise, welcomed a daughter, Wednesday, in 2020 with longtime partner Georgia Groome.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Meghan Trainor shares ‘weird’ symptom that led to postpartum PTSD diagnosis
• People are shocked to find out the flavor of Haribo’s green gummy bear
• Meghan Markle responds to ‘ridiculous’ report on why she isn’t attending King Charles’ coronation

The four-time Olympic gold medalist announced on Instagram April 22 that she tied the knot with her longtime love Jonathan Owens, 27, in a romantic courthouse wedding ceremony. 

Biles uploaded multiple pictures from their special day to Instagram that showed her beaming in a low-cut, tiered wedding gown. She wore her hair in a high ponytail that showed off the dress’s neckline and tied-back details. 

While many fans congratulated the happy couple and celebrated their love, some critics questioned the Olympian’s choice in hairstyle.

After a few Twitter users nitpicked Biles’ wedding hair — with one going so far as to suggest she should’ve worn a wig — a number of fans stepped in to praise the legendary gymnast. 

“Yall really coming for Simone Biles’s hair at her wedding. She is a young millionaire, a great gymnast, and married to the love of her life. What you got???” one person tweeted. 

Others wondered why people were choosing to comment on Biles’ hair instead of her happy union.

One fan retweeted a wedding photo and asked, “Like how could you see this picture and focus on her hair???”

“Simone Biles is a goddess. I look up to her so much and girl I could only wish for her level of beauty,” the fan continued. 

Another wrote, “I saw those pics of Simone Biles and my first thought was, ‘Aww she look so happy.’ The fact y’all zoomed in on her edges and hair is so miserable.” 

Many pointed out that the 26-year-old’s happiness and the love for her husband should be the main concern on her wedding day. 

“Simone Biles is one of THEE top gymnasts we’ve ever seen, has overcame situations of abuse and other obstacles in her childhood, has defined her own success and found love and is now happily married…” read a tweet that has received more than 60,000 likes. “And y’all worried about her hair…..?!”

Biles saw the viral tweet and responded with some details about her bouncy updo.

On April 23, she replied, “I think they also forget i live in HOUSTON TEXAS & I sweat those out!!”

Biles shared that her hair was affected by the weather as “soon as we stepped outside for pics.”

But, she did not let the humidity or the negative comments ruin her big day, adding “they can keep complaining (I don’t care).” 

Fans responded to Biles and complimented her beauty. They also encouraged her to continue to tune out the negativity. 

“Congratulations to you and your husband. Ignore the noise and enjoy your life,” one fan said. 

Another wrote, “Girl don’t listen to these haters! You looked so beautiful! Wishing you all the happiness!”

Despite the social media discussion about her hair, Biles spent most of the weekend uploading photos from her intimate nuptials and celebrating becoming Mrs. Owens. 

She shared a slideshow on Instagram that included a photo of Owens raising a fist into the air as they left the courthouse together. In another picture, the Houston Texans football player, who wore a tanned suit, dipped his bride and kissed her. 

“I do,” she captioned the snaps. “Officially owens.” 

She also posted black-and-white photos of the two holding hands and signing their marriage certificate. 

“I never knew a love so deep,” she gushed in the caption.

On his page, the NFL athlete uploaded the same snaps. “My person, forever,” he said in the caption before adding the hashtags #TheOwens and #itsofficial. 

Fans can expect more loving pictures of the two newlyweds when they say “I do” for a second time in a couple weeks. Biles revealed in an Instagram story on April 23 that the pair are also having a destination wedding. 

“We had to get married ‘legally’ here in the us — since our wedding will be a destination wedding,” she said when one fan asked about other wedding plans.

Biles added that their “big wedding” will have between 135 to 140 guests and she expects a few “gym reunions,” implying her Olympic teammates could make an appearance. 

In between responding to fans she also made a big change on her Instagram and Twitter accounts. Her name now reads: Simone Biles Owens.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Simone Biles reveals details from courthouse wedding
• Simone Biles shares sweet photos of her and Jonathan Owens’ wedding day
• Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens are married! See the photos

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The actress welcomed her first baby with musician Derek Richard Thomas during a home birth on April 18, the couple announced on Instagram along with the bundle of joy’s name: Louetta Isley Thomas Willis.

“You are pure magic,” the duo captioned a photo of their baby girl on April 22. “You are more than we ever dreamed of.”

The little one’s arrival also means that Bruce Willis and Demi Moore—who share Rumer, Scout, 31, and Tallulah, 29—have officially become grandparents.

When Willis announced her pregnancy back in December, Demi couldn’t help but to share her excitement for a grandchild. “Entering my hot kooky unhinged grandma era,” the 60-year-old wrote on Instagram, prompting her oldest daughter to reply in the comments section, “Love you mama.”

And when Willis had an ultrasound appointment later that month, Demi was right by her side. “Saying hello to the little nibblet!!” the Charlie’s Angel: Full Throttle alum captioned a family photo taken at the doctor’s office. “Overjoyed for you, my sweet Willis. It’s an honor to witness your journey into motherhood, and can’t wait to welcome this baby into the world!”

2023 Celebrity Babies

In March, Demi teamed up with her younger daughters to organized a baby shower for Willis. The intimate gathering was attended by close friends and family, including Bruce and his wife, Emma Heming Willis, as well as their daughters Mabel, 10, and Evelyn, 8, per People.

In a March 21 Instagram post, Willis described the bash as “insanely magical.”

As for Willis’s sisters? They, too, have been waiting with anticipation for the family’s newest addition. “I’m desperately excited,” Scout told E! News at the Fashion Trust Awards on March 21. “Counting down the days.”

In fact, the singer said becoming an aunt helped bring out her inner knitter. “I’ve already made a little hat,” she added. “I did. I made a bonnet with bunny ears, that’s very cute.”

It may take a village, but this family’s already got it under control.

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The “Bridesmaids” star says being on the cover “felt like it was saying something really lovely to my younger self, to my 20-year-old self. Maybe to other people, too.”

People on Tuesday revealed McCarthy’s selection and the cover for the issue that hits magazine racks on Friday.

McCarthy, 52, recounted for the magazine her upbringing on a farm in rural Illinois and how she went through a punk phase, complete with a mohawk and blue hair, when she was in high school.

“I was fascinated because when I walked down the street and I looked like that, it was the first time that I’d ever had people kind of make fun of me or say really mean things to me, even adults,” she told the magazine. “I just kept thinking, you don’t know me, I didn’t do anything to you. It was a real big eye-opener that people are just judging left and right.”

McCarthy says it wasn’t until her 30s, when she met husband and producing partner Ben Falcone, that she started feeling comfortable with herself. The couple, who have two teenage daughters together, have been married since 2005.

The actor said she wants others to find similar peace of mind.

“When someone’s being their authentic self and it hurts no one else in the world… The simplest rule is just be kind,” she says.

McCarthy stars as the sea witch Ursula in Disney’s upcoming live action “The Little Mermaid,” which will be released in May.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Prince Harry’s lawyer made the revelation in a summary of arguments about why Harry’s lawsuit against the publisher of The Sun and now-defunct News Of The World should not be thrown out. The suit alleges the newspapers unlawfully gathered information in a scandal dating back two decades.

News Group Newspapers, which Murdoch owns, argued that a High Court judge should throw out phone hacking lawsuits by the prince and actor Hugh Grant because the claims were brought too late.

But Harry, the Duke of Sussex, said he was prevented from bringing his case because of a secret agreement between the royal family and the newspapers that called for a settlement and apology. The deal, which the prince said was authorized by the late Queen Elizabeth II, would have prevented future litigation from the royals.

Harry began pushing for a resolution in 2017 but said he “had enough” after the publisher “filibustered.” He filed suit in 2019.

The papers said William, Prince of Wales, later settled for a large, but undisclosed sum.

“It is important to bear in mind that in responding to this bid by NGN to prevent his claims going to trial, (Harry) has had to make public the details of this secret agreement, as well as the fact that his brother, His Royal Highness Prince William, has recently settled his claim against NGN behind the scenes,” attorney David Sherborne wrote. “This is used very much by (Harry) as ‘a shield not a sword’ against NGN’s attack.”

The lawsuit is one of several that Harry has brought against British newspapers, including two other phone hacking cases.

“These decisions are never easy, and not without sadness,” she wrote, in part, in an Oct. 4 Instagram post. “We will maintain a friendship as we co-parent our beautiful children.”

2023 Celebrity Breakups

The actress added, “I am grateful for all the happy times we had together and want to thank my friends, family and fans for your love and support as we start this new chapter moving forward in our lives.”

The finalization also comes just days after the “Twitches” star opened up about navigating life post-split.

“If I’m being completely honest with you all, these last few months have been some of the hardest of my life,” she wrote alongside an April 21 social media post featuring their two children. “There’s no telling what direction life is going to take you and nothing but one thing is ever certain: the love I have for these two.”

As Mowry noted, “They are the reason I continue to push myself every day to work harder. Even when the going gets tough, I do everything for my kids, for their future, and for the generations to come.”

Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said Masterson put substances into drinks that he gave to a longtime girlfriend and two women he knew through friend circles around the Church of Scientology, all of whom Masterson is charged with raping.

“The evidence will show that they were drugged,” Mueller told the jury. The defense denies such evidence exists.

Direct discussion of drugging was missing from the first trial — which ended in a mistrial when a jury deadlocked on all three counts — with Mueller instead having to imply it through the testimony of the women, who said they were woozy, disoriented and at times unconscious on the nights they described the actor raping them.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo is allowing the direct assertion at the second trial.

Masterson’s attorney, Philip Cohen, said in the defense opening statement that those hazy stories and assertions are all the prosecution has, and he told jurors, “there is no drugging charge in this case.”

Attorneys for both sides acknowledged that there is no forensic evidence of any substances Masterson may have given the women because the police investigation that led to the two trials did not begin until about 15 years after the events.

Hollywood Nov 30, 2022

Mistrial Declared in Actor Danny Masterson's Rape Trial

But Mueller said he will call an analyst from the police toxicology unit, “who will tell you how some of the most common drug-facilitated sexual assaults, how some of the most common date rape drugs work, how quickly they’re metabolized, what side effects look like.”

Cohen responded that “a toxicologist can come in opine to whatever they want, but there is no toxicology report, there’s no urine, no blood work, no DNA.”

Cohen was not allowed to refer to testimony from the first trial — something Olmedo admonished him several times for doing — but he said he expected testimony this time would show that one of the women Masterson is charged with raping watched him make the allegedly drugged drink her gave her.

Cohen told jurors that another of the women, a young actress who spent an evening alone with Masterson at his house in 2003, made no mention of drugging at the time.

“She spoke to her mom about how her date with Masterson went, she spoke to her friends, she did not ever say to one person, ‘I was drugged.’ Never,” Cohen said.

She would only mention thinking she had been drugged years later after the investigation began, Cohen said.

This and many other similarities between the women’s stories come from them talking to each other and “cross-pollinating” the details of their accounts, something they did multiple times even after the detective in the case warned them that such communication could taint the case against Masterson, Cohen said.

The drugging allegations had echoes of the trial of Bill Cosby, where women testified to similar experiences. Cosby’s conviction after two trials of his own was permanently thrown out by Pennsylvania’s highest court.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

Masterson, 47, could get 45 years in prison if convicted.

Mueller also told jurors that the women did not immediately go to authorities because they were told not to by officials in the Church of Scientology, and they were told what happened to them was not rape.

Masterson is a prominent member of the church. All three women are former members.

The church said in a statement after the women’s testimony in the first trial that it “has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists, or of anyone, to law enforcement.”

In another difference from the first trial, Olmedo is allowing expert witnesses to testify on those policies.

Cohen said that prosecution expert Claire Headley, a former member of the church’s leadership group, is someone who works “to rid the world of Scientology, rid people of Scientology,” and told jurors they were going to “hear tremendous bias” in her testimony. The expert on the defense witness list is her father-in-law, a current high-level Scientologist.

Actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who has become the church’s most prominent detractor on social media and through a TV series she hosted featuring dissident ex-members, sat in the front row of the courtroom in support of Masterson’s accusers.

Masterson, who has been free on bail since his 2020 arrest, sat at the defense table, with a large coterie of supporters behind him, many if not all church members, who also sat through his first trial. They included his wife, model and actor Bijou Phillips; his sister-in-law, “One Day at a Time” actor Mackenzie Phillips; and his brother, “Malcolm in the Middle” actor Christopher Masterson.