On ex-footballer DAVID BECKHAM, age 50…
“As a kid Beckham was coached by his dad, who fed him Guinness with raw eggs so he’d gain weight and was a Tiger Dad (ie a keen disciplinarian invested in their child’s success), while his mum worked ineffectively to draw the line between parental ambition and child labour. That’s the picture that came out of a 2023 Netflix documentary anyway.
Footballers in the 90s weren’t meant to be good looking or boy-band gorgeous. Blame it on the pervasive, though dwindling, homophobia of the era: if you were too handsome, men couldn’t love you as hard and vocally as they might wish when you did a good thing playing football.
In 1997 Tony Blair had just won the election, football was the emblematic pastime to unify a newly classless nation and Beckham was the natural repository for all our optimism. He was young, pretty, industrious, wholesome – the poster boy for Cool Britannia.
Becks donning a sarong was taken as proof that Posh Spice had stolen him from the world of men by witchcraft. It’s impossible to overestimate how upset people were by sarong-gate, particularly the tabloids.
When Beckham missed something to look after baby Brooklyn, there was no end of sniffiness about his fatherly tenderness, which was seen by many in the 00s as even worse than wearing a sarong.
After 10 years with their own public profile, his tresses were replaced by a harder look. A paparazzo said: ‘When Beckham shaved his head, I thought a member of my family had died. My phone went off. The panic in people’s voices.’
Becks was a devoted spouse who was willing to sit with his children at a fashion show.
In the early 2010s journalists asked: was that his real butt in the H&M shoot? Did he have a packet double? ‘No,’ he said. ‘The crotch is mine and the backside as well. I can confirm that’s my bum.’
The Guardian said of Sam Taylor-Wood’s 107-minute film portrait of a sleeping Beckham: ‘The curves of his musculature and honeyed tone of his skin are sensuously conveyed. This is a David as physically perfect as Michelangelo’s.’
Pretty-boy footballer, supposed love rat, fine-art subject: this life has lurched from idolatry to vilification.
With his Qatar 2022 World Cup ambassador deal, it looked like he’d picked the wrong lane between LBGTQ+ allegiance and money. Yet a Hugo Boss bodywear pic redeemed Beckham as a proud, lifelong gay icon defiantly posing in his undies”
WORDS David Beckham at 50: his gorgeous, outrageous life in 50 pictures (Guardian, 2/5/25)
🌈 “We hope people take cues from celebs who support their TRANS and NONBINARY KIDS…
ALLY SHEEDY’s trans son Beckett came out in his teens: ‘I want him to be able to do whatever he wants. Parents need to educate themselves’
ANETTE BENING’s eldest child, Stephen, who came out as trans at age 20, is ‘a revolutionary, a genius & my hero, as are all my children’
CHARLIZE THERON’s child Jackson, who came out as trans, said at age 3: ‘I am not a boy!’ Theron says: ‘I have 2 beautiful daughters. They were born who they are. Exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up and who they want to be is not for me to decide’
DWYANE WADE said at an awards ceremony: ‘Zaya, you’ve made me a better human just by being who you were born to be: our baby girl. I’m proud I was chosen to stand in place as your father’ & his wife GABRIELLE UNION-WADE said: ‘It is our job to be loving, compassionate, protective guides for our children, but their lives are their lives’
JAMIE LEE CURTIS ‘I am proud and grateful to be the parent of a trans child. I VOW to use my freedom of speech to SUPPORT my child and ALL children trying to live FREELY as who they are’
CHER on her trans son Chaz: ‘I don’t know what people’s problems are. I say: “Relax and you guys will get through it together”’
MARCIA GAY HARDEN ‘What drives me is all my children are queer. My eldest is nonbinary. My son is gay. My youngest is fluid. They teach me every day’
NAOMI WATTS to her trans daughter Kai: ‘You are everything to me. Keep showing the world your dynamic, glorious spirit’
ROSIE O’DONNELL’s youngest child Clay told her ‘their stuffies were nonbinary’ and a year later said: ‘That’s me too.’ O’Donnell replied: ‘Welcome aboard, honey’
SADE’s trans son Izaak posted her: ‘Thank you for fighting with me to complete the man I am’
STING’s nonbinary child Eliot, who doesn’t identify with one gender, said about coming out: ‘No one ever asked. They knew already. So I didn’t need to. I’ve never come out to anyone. My friends always knew and I always knew’
CYNTHIA NIXON ‘I’m so proud of my son Samuel Joseph Mozes (called Seph) who graduated college this month. I salute him and everyone else marking today’s #TransDayofAction. You can make all the arguments you want. But the fact is, as a parent, as a human, you should listen to what people tell you about themselves’
SIGOURNEY WEAVER on her child Char: ‘They are nonbinary’ and being a mum is ‘absolutely the most important thing’ in her life
MARLON WAYANS whose child Kai who uses they/them pronouns: ‘I want my kids to be free in spirit and thought, free to be themselves. The more you know yourself and live your truth, the happier your existence. Kai is the same child: they just got a beard now. OK?’
HEATHER DUBROW ‘Our job as parents is to give our kids a safe and supportive environment so they can grow up as healthy, happy, confident, independent humans. Since Ace is 12, with a long life ahead of him, we will let him tell his own story some day if he chooses. All we can say is: Ace, we love you so much and we are proud to be your parents’
COLIN MOCHRIE on his trans daughter Kinley: ‘This is my child, the exact same person, with a new coat. All you want when you
have a child is for them to be safe, happy and better than you’ & his wife DEBRA MCGRATH says: ‘I was fine with my child’s transition. I wasn’t invested in her gender, just her humanity’
JENNIFER LOPEZ on her child Emme, who uses they/them pronouns: ‘They're my favourite duet partner’
ROBERT DE NIRO on his trans child: ‘I love and support Airyn as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is. I love all my children’
MICHELLE VISAGE on parenting ‘a queer child who is basically transitioning: this is not the child you thought you were. It’s an even better child, because they’re authentically themselves. Just love your kids and it’ll magically cure everything’”
WORDS From Charlize Theron to Sade, Celebrity Parents Are Loudly Supporting Their Trans and Nonbinary Kids (them, 3/3/25)
🌈 Trans woman AIRYN DE NIRO, age 29 & daughter of actors Robert De Niro and Toukie Smith, after seeing Halle Bailey in The Little Mermaid got locs at a Black hair salon, explaining: “I feel like I’m meant to be doing this”. The Daily Mail then declared: “Robert De Niro’s nepo baby son shows off shock transformation with heels and pink hair“…
“Airyn says: ‘I’ve been visible. I don’t think I’ve been seen yet.’
Growing up she was ridiculed and excluded by her peers for being feminine and different in ways she couldn’t yet describe. Being biracial complicated her search for belonging. Despite her parents accepting her queerness, she felt hypervisible: ‘I grew up a bigger-bodied person. Everybody else in the family was relatively thin or fit, so nobody could relate to that experience.
At school when people started hitting puberty and liking each other – I never had that. I never had a boyfriend at a young age, even though, looking back: do we really need to be dating in middle school? I was like: “Wow, these things signify I’m very unwanted, not desirable, not attractive like the other people.”’
Coming out as a gay man in high school intensified the pressure to squeeze into the mould of Eurocentric beauty standards: ‘Gay men were ruthless. I didn’t even fit that beauty standard, which is thin, white, muscular or just super-fit. Growing up I was told I was too big. Not Black, white or masculine enough. It was never: “You’re right just the way you are.”’
Femme-presenting since middle school, Airyn began hormone therapy in November: ‘Trans women being honest and open in public spaces like social media – getting to see them in their success, I’m like: “Maybe I can start.”
Part of me is concerned that my family will maybe still think of me as the person I was before the transition.
The way my mom would hold herself and interact with others in public, I see myself emulating that, whether it’s turning on the charm or not putting on a mask but wanting to be feminine in a way that’s inviting.
I want to be an inspiration for at least one other person like me who is Black, queer, not a size extra small. I want to see more trans women, more Black women, who don’t fit the mould of heroin chic.
People of colour and queer people need more mental health support. I’m hoping I’m able to do that. The field was so catered to white cis hetero men – what they deem as wrong, right, mentally ill: that is from their lens. It’s beneficial to work with a counsellor or mental health professional who can relate to you or intersects with some part of you.
I wish people saw [in me] someone who’s trying their hardest to heal from growing up not feeling good about themselves. And in the process trying to make other people feel good about themselves’”
WORDS Airyn De Niro Is Ready to Be Seen on Her Own Terms (them, 29/4/25)
🌈 Actors DAVID TENNANT, age 54, & his wife GEORGIA, 40 – who have 5 kids – haven’t “spoken publicly about having a nonbinary child but use they/them pronouns when referring to their middle child” and are “perfect allies as parents”…
“Georgia shared an image of Wilfred with blond plaits, posting: ‘Our kid is 12 today. 12 years of being exactly who they are, of challenging people’s perceptions, of forever changing ours. 12 years of being the smartest person in the room. And the funniest. 12 years of loving you. For who you are now and whomever you end up being. I am so glad you exist.’
They celebrate their child’s identity without making it a huge topic of conversation. Last year Georgia posted: ‘I won’t ever be able to express how important you are to the world but I suspect you’ll do that for me. Your kindness, humour and fearlessness is second only to your pretty intense love for Ryan Reynolds. I am so proud of who you are, always.’
Georgia has highlighted how important advocating for LGBT+ issues is to their family, plus the support of the community. The Tennant gang has worn rainbow colours for Pride and T-shirts that support gay rights. They encourage their kids to wave the Pride flag whenever they like.
David said: ‘Our kids are lovely. Being a dad is one of the most extraordinary and life-affirming things that can ever happen to you, as
well as something you have to keep working at if you’re going to be any good at it. In my experience being a parent, it’s hit and miss, full of triumphs and disasters.
David said: ‘Our kids are lovely. Being a dad is one of the most extraordinary and life-affirming things that can ever happen to you, as well as something you have to keep working at if you’re going to be any good at it. In my experience being a parent, it’s hit and miss, full of triumphs and disasters.
My mum and dad were loving, but it was never very expressed. It was expressed [by] their presence, actions and consistency, but not particularly tactile. It was understood rather than exhibited. No – it was exhibited but it wasn’t stated.
I don’t remember us as a family saying: “I love you.”
We do that to our kids all the time. Too much. And they do it back.’
They aren’t the only proud parents supporting LGBT+ kids: last week Robert De Niro, 81, proved what an icon he is by saying of Airyn, 29: ‘I loved and supported Aaron as my son. Now I love and support Airyn as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is – I love all my children’”
WORDS David Tennant and wife Georgia perfectly exemplify how to parent a nonbinary child (Metro, 2/5/25)
Actor BEN AFFLECK (age 52 & dad to Violet, Seraphina & Samuel) recently teased actor MATT DAMON (age 54 & dad to Alexia, Isabella, Gia & Stella) about shirtless photos of Damon on the set of The Odyssey that went viral…
“Admitting he’s a little jealous of Damon’s impressive abs, Affleck quipped about his longtime friend’s ripped physique: ‘I’m a little bit – yeah, I don’t like it. I feel like he’s upstaging me, but what are you gonna do? I gotta respect it.
He does look pretty good – I’m kind of impressed.’
Despite the jesting, Affleck expressed genuine admiration for Damon’s commitment to getting in shape in his 50s, adding: ‘I have to give him respect. As you get on in life, it’s less and less easy to do this, as I can tell you – and he is getting it done.’
Affleck also teased that Damon deliberately flexed for the cameras: ‘You see, they just told him there were photographers out there, so he’s like: “I’m flexing my abs – are you watching me? Take my picture!”’
Affleck & Damon have been friends since they were 8 years old. Previously Damon had reflected on the difference in their celebrity experiences, noting that tabloids largely ignored him early in his career because he led a more private life.
He said: ‘I wasn’t an exciting story – the guy who’s married is boring! Scandal and sex: that’s what people read magazines for. I’ve been really lucky.’
In the film The Accountant 2, Affleck says about playing a socially awkward accountant who struggles with flirting and forming relationships: ‘My character wants to have a relationship – he’s trying to figure out how to put yourself out there. You know, he’s not comfortable extending himself. He doesn’t really know how to flirt exactly. He’s not comfortable, like so many of us’”
WORDS Ben Affleck confesses jealousy toward Matt Damon: Can you guess the reason? (Hola!, 22/4/25)
MORE FROM AFFLECK ON DAMON
• “Matt, soon as the first time he got in shape in his life, whipped his shirt off. He was like: ‘Who can I show this off to?!’ I was like: ‘You wanna just hold back a little?’”
Actor DEMI MOORE – age 62 & mum of 3 – on putting her body through “torture” early in her career…
“I mean, crazy things with diet and exercise. Because I placed so much value on what my outsides looked like.
Today it’s more about health, longevity, quality of life. I’ve evolved into greater gentility towards myself.
[Bulking up for the film GI Jane I was] harsh and had a more antagonistic relationship with my body. Straight up, I was punishing myself. In this desire to dominate it vs now, I have a more intuitive, relaxed relationship with my body.
I had transformed my body multiple times – obviously it was a much bigger, muscular body.
I had a moment of surrender where I understood what it meant to accept my body as it is though it’s not the body I wanted. I remember just asking to be my natural size because I didn’t know what it was anymore. I’d had 3 pregnancies, done all this diet and exercise, controlled and changed it. I stopped trying to control my food. I just let go.
[With Striptease] I was uncomfortable with the dancing. So dancing and finding my own comfort with my own body was empowering and liberating.
[With The Substance there was] liberation in accepting my body as someone in their 60s. And it being what it is, not the body I had at 20 even when I was complaining about the body I had at 20 or 30. Nudity was an important part of the vulnerability that needed to be conveyed.
[Embracing ageing in Hollywood the biggest thing is] being in acceptance of who we are, as we are. I have a greater appreciation for all that my body has been through that brought me to now. That doesn’t mean that sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t go: ‘I look old’ or ‘My face is falling.’ I do. But I accept that’s where I’m at and know the difference is that it doesn’t define my value or who I am.
[I trust my body] when it tells me it needs to eat, it’s thirsty. I listen to it and I have a lot less fear. When I was younger I felt like my body was betraying me. So I tried to control it. Now I don’t operate from that place. It’s a more aligned relationship”
WORDS Demi Moore Admits She Used to “Torture” Her Body With “Crazy” Workouts: “I Was Really Just Punishing Myself” (People, 23/4/25)
Comedian JACK WHITEHALL, age 36, said in the Disney+ documentary Flintoff about having an eating disorder early in his career…
“‘I was bulimic. I remember that pressure of being on TV. It’s not something I’d seen men or people in the media talk about until Fred spoke about it.’
Former cricketer Freddie Flintoff said in the 2020 BBC documentary Freddie Flintoff: Living With Bulimia: ‘It affects everything.’ Afterwards he tweeted: ‘Hopefully we’ve helped raise awareness of such an important subject.’
The NHS says: ‘Bulimia is a serious mental health condition. It can affect anyone. You can recover from it.’
Other male public figures who suffered from bulimia include musicians Elton John and Ed Sheeran and politician John Prescott.
Sheeran said: ‘I’m like: ‘Why don’t I have a 6-pack? Because you love kebabs and drink beer.’ [Other singers] have fantastic figures. So I found myself doing what Elton John talks about in his book: gorging and then it would come up again.
There’s certain things that, as a man talking about them, I feel mad uncomfortable. I know people will see it a type of way, but it’s good to be honest. Because so many people do the same thing and hide it.
I’m a real binge eater, a binge-everything. I’m now more of a binge exerciser and a binge dad. And work, obviously.’
In his autobiography, Prescott said his battle with bulimia started in the 1980s: ‘People normally associate it with young women – anorexic girls, models trying to keep their weight down or women in stressful situations, like Princess Diana. I turned up [for specialist help] & found his waiting room full of young women. I was the only man there. I felt a right twerp.’
John said: ‘I went to a hospital in Chicago because I was bulimic and the food issue among men was just only starting’”
WORDS As Jack Whitehall reveals he battled bulimia like Freddie Flintoff, male star sufferers include Ed Sheeran (National World, 23/4/25)
MORE FROM WHITEHALL
• “I looked up to Flintoff as a kid. [Later] I was like: he’s this big burly northern bloke and I’m this rather effeminate flouncing boarding-school boy – I’m probably not going to be his type of chap.
People think of him as so strong and alpha but he’s definitely fragile. To see how open and honest he’s been about his struggles – like his bulimia…”
• Flintoff: “I became known as a fat cricketer. That was when I started being sick after meals. My weight was coming down. It was like: ‘I’m bossing this.’ It just carried on and I was doing it all the time”
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Actor ADRIA ARJONA, age 32, uses the word “rape” in a Disney+ show…
“In the Star Wars universe there’s been no shortage of suggested violence against women (we don’t even want to know what Jabba planned to do with Slave Leia).
But the show Andor depicts an attempted rape. Bix (Arjona) is pinned down by an Imperial lieutenant. After saying: ‘You’re illegal’ he offers a repulsive deal: have sex with him & he won’t turn her in. He attempts to force himself on her, provoking Bix into self-defence.
Finding solace & inspiration in accounts of women who survived rape & torture, Arjona says: ‘I read interviews & saw videos. I felt like I went through the acting Olympics. It was draining. It felt like I was telling a part of the story of the individuals I honed in on, like I was making them proud. It was a little homage.
If Bix says: “My boyfriend is coming” she might feel he won’t respect her, right? But “my husband”: there’s power to that. Of course he doesn’t respect it, but she feels incredibly cornered. It’s a way of escaping. She’s trying to get out of a very tricky situation that, as women, we unfortunately are stuck in quite a bit.
[Andor creator Tony Gilroy] brings this mirror effect – things that happen in our world can happen in a galaxy far, far away’”
WORDS Adria Arjona says filming first Star Wars rape scene in Andor was the “acting Olympics” (Entertainment Weekly, 23/4/25)
AND…
• “I remember, within that moment of abuse of power, being scared to go into that scene. There was something really fucking powerful about the fact that I get to showcase this in a galaxy far, far away. Bix is in the most vulnerable state she can be in and someone tries to take advantage of her. We’ve heard that story many times.
Backslapping is what I wish my reaction would be if I were ever in that moment. Everything becomes survival. It felt liberating. I had a lot of women in my heart at that time.
That I get to speak [the word rape] out loud – I felt so much power in that. I felt it when I finished filming and went home.
I’ve had my fair share of panic attacks. Like many people, I’ve gone to the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack. So it was scary going back into that headspace”
• Gilroy: “Let’s be honest, man: the history of civilisation – there’s a huge arterial component of it that’s rape. All of us who are here: we are all the product of rape. Armies and power [commit rape]. It felt right, coming about as a power trip for this guy.
No one [at Disney] ever said anything about it. We are very aware of what we can do sexually and violence wise. Those limits are very clear”
Actor IONE SKYE, age 54 & daughter of the singer Donovan, in her “disarming and horny” memoir Say Everything (“a cautionary tale” for her 2 girls) recounts “sexcapades with both male and female celebrities”, such as…
“‘When I reached for his belt buckle, Keanu [Reeves] took my wrist, stopping me.’
Skye says: ‘Writing a sex scene is so funny – I didn’t want it to be cringy, sleazy or too crass.’
Her teenage antics read like a gen X schoolgirl’s wildest fantasies but the self-confessed helicopter mum says her ‘hackles rise’ imagining her daughter Goldie, age 15, in her shoes. Neither Goldie nor Kate, 23, has read the book ‘but they know about my life and my destructive way I had sex’.
She joyfully but guiltily explored her bisexuality (strap-on sex with Jenny Shimizu ‘made me needy and devoted. I wanted to be her dog, like in that Stooges song’).
After the first night with her now husband Ben Lee, he said: ‘Whatever you’re feeling, I am not.’
[On her libido] ‘It’s not what it was but Ben and I have a really nice sex life.
I think I’m a little more straight than gay, but I’m happy and not distracted or looking around’”
WORDS “I’d love Keanu to read it”: Ione Skye on bisexuality, infidelity and her wild tell-all memoir (Guardian, 14/4/25)
MORE FROM SKYE
• “The pressure I had put on myself to look like a friggin’ model is insane. I’ll always have that mind where I put pressure on myself thinking my stomach looks big in a picture or whatever. But I appreciate superficially the parts of my body I do like. In the book I write a list about the parts I like vs the parts I don’t, which is not a healthy thing.
My tummy is getting bigger and I’m gaining a little weight as I’m menopausal. I’m giving myself grace for the changes of my body. Being healthy is more important than worrying too much about what I look like in clothes.
I still feel sexy and beautiful”
• [On intimacy] “It’s been this process of having sex for myself. I was doing it a lot without really being in my body or knowing what I wanted. It felt almost like an extension of being creative with someone I was attracted to and admired. But I was very unable to enjoy it, or I felt insecure about my body.
In my marriage I've turned it more into: ‘This is good for me’, which sounds unsexy but isn’t. I remind myself: ‘This is for your sexual health and to connect with yourself and your husband.’ It’s such a long road and it’s still going”
• [On Matthew Perry] “Emotionally distant sex; another cigarette”
• [On John Cusack] “It wasn’t that the sex wasn’t good or that he wasn’t a good lover. It was like a fun romp but our friendship endured.
[After Cusack texted her: ‘You made the experience sound so meh! It wasn’t “meh” for me’] I was like: ‘I’m telling a story and it was more about how all of our chemistry was in our working together and stimulating each other’s minds, not sleeping together!’ I felt a little bad, but oh well”
• “It’s really good that more people are talking about the menopause. I can’t believe my mom didn’t”
Singer SHIRLEY MANSON, age 58, says about a Daily Mail headline about her band Garbage being “unrecognisable”…
“What is THIS supposed to mean?!? The Druids look almost exactly the same as they have always done for 30 years so I can’t help thinking this is directed at me.
Look – I’m nearly 60 years old. Of course I’m not going to look anything like my late 20s self?!?
Quite honestly I think it would be a bit creepy if I did. Either way – this kind of language is weaponised to put a woman like me in my place.
I shall continue to age as I am. I will continue to wrinkle and flub – lose an inch of my height here and gain a new inch or two there – but I will still look cute in my pyjamas with bed head and no makeup on and I will always – no matter what I look like – no matter what they say about me – I will always rock HARDER than most”
WORDS Garbage’s Shirley Manson responds to “weaponised” comments about her appearance (NME, 13/4/25)
AND…
• On starting out: “I was young, hungry and distracted. I didn’t notice a lot of the micro-misogyny and the micro-sexism at first. Then I read my own press, like a fool, and these horrible descriptions of me, really degrading or sexual, or just nasty shit. It really stung.
The 90s offered a different kind of woman for the first time, arguably ever, in culture. Liberated, mouthy, opinionated, political, also often beautiful and powerful.
At first they thought it was a marvellous distraction, a joyous kink. Then they were like: ‘These women are getting a lot of attention and taking up a lot of column space and we’re going to crush it.’ Subconsciously, not deliberately.
There was a sense of: ‘Go back to the hole you crawled out of. Let’s get back to real music, serious music, proper creativity, important statements and sounds coming from the men.’
Success comes with a lot of visual accompaniment. When your self is reflected back at you on every magazine, some versions are gorgeous and fantastical and you look nothing like yourself – maybe there’s a small semblance of you in the eyes.
And then there are incredibly unflattering ones. I wasn’t the right personality to deal with that. I found it repulsive. I didn’t get an iota of pleasure out of it.
I felt: if I was good enough, I’d look like that image. But I don’t so they have to augment it with lights, makeup, hair and stylists, nail manicurists. It really did a number on my self-esteem”
Actors STEPHEN GRAHAM (who plays Eddie Miller in Adolescence), age 51, & OWEN COOPER, age 15 (who plays his son Jamie) – talk about the Netflix series that raises issues of influencers, misogyny and male rage…
GRAHAM My uncle Eddie [on whom he loosely based his character] told me after my auntie died – they were together since they were teens, and their relationship was beautiful but he didn’t shed a tear at the funeral: he’s a very stoic man – “Sometimes I forget and I shout upstairs. I shout her name.” I thought that was the way to bring that emotion into my character, when nobody can see.
My wife Hannah [also in the show] said something rather marvellous: “What we have done is created an opportunity for parents to literally open that bedroom door and have a conversation.”
Schools could do a lot more to educate children about the dangers within today’s society. The government is slightly responsible as well. You have to be mindful of freedom of speech, but maybe there are certain things young boys should not have access to
COOPER I’m not watching Adolescence in my own school. No chance
GRAHAM The little shits played a trick but it really helped [the crew put up pictures of his kids Grace and Alfie on Jamie’s bedroom wall and his kids wrote on a cupboard: “We’re so proud of you Dad and we love you”]
COOPER [On the manosphere being an “eye-opener” for him] I was glad I didn’t have an idea of what was going on – the emojis and the meanings behind them. I had no clue. And I don’t think my friends knew, but it’s obviously happening across the country. It’s not a made-up story.
Jamie could have been more protected. He’s speaking to the wrong people online, which his family obviously has no idea about. His parents could have just told him to come off his phone. Simple things like that could stop someone changing their life, because Jamie’s life is never, ever going to be the same again
GRAHAM [On “nonstop” interactions with the public] 100% of people said: “Thank you.” A good few dads said: “It’s really made me look at myself. As soon as I finished watching it, I went into my kids’ room and I gave them a cuddle. We’ve started to talk. I ask more questions”
WORDS The Rage of Adolescence: Inside the Single-Shot Sensation Blowing Up the Manosphere (Hollywood Reporter, 10/4/25)
Actor AIMEE LOU WOOD, age 31, says that as a child…
“I was almost mute, very socially anxious. I couldn’t sit down and eat a meal. My mum had to leave food around the house and I’d have to snack around. It was neurodivergence – I got diagnosed a few years ago with ADHD with autistic traits. They think maybe it’s autism that’s leading the charge and the ADHD is a by-product of the masking.
When I was younger and dealing with my eating stuff, it was my worst nightmare to get my body out. But I’d worked through that stuff and then I was back to covering up.
There was so much in the way that I started to desexualise myself.
Sometimes you just want to put on a sexy dress and be a siren, but I denied myself that.
With White Lotus, I was more nervous about bikinis than sex scenes. I was more worried about just being around the pool because I feel like that’s when you’re thinking more about how you look. Whereas in an intimate scene it’s about the intimacy.
But you just, kind of, have to forget that. You have to let it go. [Bikini scenes were] way scarier to me, actually”
WORDS The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood was “almost mute” and “very socially anxious” (Yahoo News, 7/4/25)
MORE FROM WOOD
• “I was so detached from my body when I was in the eating disorders, it was like I was outside it, scrutinising it. Your body becomes like an enemy. I am very gradually getting over that”
• “I’m very anti-Botox. A lot of my career relies on these facial expressions. So I can’t start freezing my face. It needs to move”
• About the gap in her grin: “It makes me really happy that it’s symbolising rebellion and freedom, but there’s a limit. The whole conversation is just about my teeth – it makes me a bit sad because I’m not getting to talk about my work. They think it’s nice because they’re not criticising. And I have to go there.
I don’t know: if it was a man, would we be talking about it this much? It’s still going on about a woman’s appearance”
• “After being bullied for my teeth forever, now people are clapping in an audience because I’ve got these gnashers”• On almost not getting the White Lotus part: “My little head goes: ‘HBO didn’t want me because I’m ugly’”
Actor JON HAMM, age 54, on how for the Apple TV+ show Your Friends & Neighbors he worked with a “wonderful” intimacy coordinator…
“It is a relatively new job but I think it’s probably overdue.
We obviously were very cognisant of everybody’s comfort and we were certainly on board with all of that.
Most of it is about having real, unfiltered conversations with people and making sure everybody’s comfortable.
I mean, it’s an odd thing that we do when we have to get sort of emotionally and physically undone in front of people.
And I think you want to make sure that everybody’s mental health and comfort is first and foremost on the docket.
Just having those conversations and having somebody whose job it is to facilitate those is pretty cool”
WORDS Jon Hamm praises intimacy coordinator for Your Friends & Neighbors sex scenes: “We obviously were very cognizant of everybody’s comfort” (Aol, 8/4/25)
MORE FROM HAMM…
• “There’s something about being as old as [I am] that I’m comfy in how I look. I was so much more worried about that stuff in my 20s and 30s. Now I’m like: ‘Who gives a shit?’ I’m not trying to win any kind of body-conscious race. That race is over, and Mark Wahlberg won”
• [On being asked by comedian Tina Fey, his friend: “Do you get tired of fucking on camera at a certain point?”] “You know there’s no actual fucking, Tina. You know that, right?”
AND ON HAMM…
• Actor Jennifer Aniston on working with Hamm on The Morning Show: “Jon was such a gentleman. I mean every move, every cut: ‘You OK?’ It was also very choreographed. They asked us if we wanted an intimacy coordinator. I’m from the olden days, so I was like: ‘What does that mean?’ They said: ‘Where someone asks you if you’re OK’ and I’m like: ‘Please, this is awkward enough! We’re seasoned – we can figure this one out’”
Actor GWYNETH PALTROW, age 52 & mum to Apple, 20, and Moses, 18, talks about sex scenes with Timothée Chalamet in the film Marty Supreme…
“Paparazzi footage from the set revealed Chalamet, a few decades Paltrow’s junior, spontaneously grabbing her and kissing her senseless in Central Park. Unto us Gwynothée was born. That viral scene is but foreplay.
‘I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,’ Paltrow teases. ‘There’s a lot – a lot.’
You’re in a lot of vulnerable positions with him?
‘Beyond,’ Paltrow says.
In contrast to the brawny Tom Cruises of Paltrow’s youth, Chalamet is ‘such a thinking man’s sex symbol. He’s just a very polite, properly raised, I was going to say KID. He’s a man who takes his work seriously and is a fun partner.’
Which brings us back to the copious amounts of onscreen sex, which has changed since the days of peak Paltrow.
‘There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed.’ When Paltrow was asked if she’d be OK with a particular move, ‘I was like: “Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.”’
Gwynothée all but waved off the intimacy coordinator: ‘We said: “I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back.” I don’t know how it is for kids starting out but if someone is like: “Then he’s going to put his hand here ”’ – she lays a hand on her shoulder – ‘I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.’
She mostly shrugs at simulating all of that sex with Chalamet: ‘I was like: “OK great. I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.”’
Paltrow is part of the reason behind the shift to intimacy coordinators, who rose to prominence after #MeToo. She lent her voice to the reckoning in 2017, alleging that Harvey Weinstein made sexual advances on her in his hotel suite when she was 22.
Has #MeToo changed the industry? ‘I think so. There are no meetings in hotel rooms, from what I understand, or it’s multiple people in the room. That bubble has definitely burst. I’m sure people still abuse power in Hollywood because they do everywhere, but it has definitely changed’”
WORDS Gwyneth Paltrow on Motherhood, MAHA, Meghan Markle, Making Out With Timothée Chalamet – and Much More (Vanity Fair, 18/3/25)
Olympian athlete ERIN PHILLIPS, age 39, describes in her biography Inside And Out going through a “dark time” at the peak of her sporting career…
“I was reverting to diet pills and wasn’t eating properly.
[The “catalyst” for her body-image problems was her team’s] skin-tight, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination Opals bodysuit. I was super self-conscious wearing that uniform. Everything was so centralised around my stomach and wanting to have flat abs. I remember thinking all my issues in life would go away [if I could fix my stomach].
[The practice of skinfold testing did ‘lasting’ damage to her and her teammates’ self-esteem] The monitoring was presented to us as part of high-performance practice, but the ramifications were frightening for young women and their sense of body image.
I’d have done anything to play for Australia, even if that meant taking extreme measures, including over-training and under-eating to the point of exhaustion. I felt powerless to change the bodysuit uniform or the skinfold testing routine, but I could change myself.
[Obsessing over her skinfold numbers] I used to stand in front of the mirror and pinch myself in the places that my skinfold test pinched me, criticising myself intensely. I thought that if I could cut my stomach, someone would have to sew it back together and they could tuck it at the same time.
I wished I could cut my stomach off with scissors. I had what I now see as an unhealthy fixation on my ‘big legs’, ‘puppy fat’ and ‘pot-belly stomach’. I’d clearly learned those terms from somewhere.
I must have only been 16 but I had these thoughts on countless occasions. I felt I desperately needed a solution. To put it simply, I hated my body.
[Phillips moved forward by] appreciating my body for what I can do, rather than what it looks like.
We’re custom made, right? So nothing should look the same. We have incredible bodies. We’re all shapes and sizes; we’re beautiful.
The more I learned about my body and what it can do, the more I became aware of how amazing the human body is & I wanted to feel good for me, not anybody else”
WORDS AFLW and basketball star Erin Phillips opens up on body image issues (ABC News_au ,4/4/25)
Actor BILL MURRAY, age 74, says about his alleged inappropriate behaviour – “kissing” & “straddling” a female co-worker on the film Being Mortal in 2022…
“Someone I worked with, that I’d had lunch with on various days of the week – it was Covid, we were all wearing masks and we were all stranded in this one room listening to this crazy scene. I dunno what prompted me to do it. It’s something I’d done to someone else before and I thought it was funny – every time it happened it was funny.
I was wearing a mask and I gave her a kiss and she was wearing a mask. It wasn’t like I touched her, but it was just: I gave her a kiss through a mask. And she wasn’t a stranger.
It still bothers me because that movie was stopped by the human rights or ‘H&R’ of the Disney corporation, which is probably a bit more strident than some other countries. It turned out there were pre-existing conditions and all this kind of stuff. I’m like: ‘How was anyone supposed to know anything like that?’
There was no conversation, no peacemaking, nothing.It went to this lunatic arbitration, which, if anyone ever suggests you go to arbitration: don’t do it. Never, ever do it. Because you think it’s justice and it isn’t.
[On whether he learned from the experience] I think so. You can teach an old dog new tricks. But it was a great disappointment, because I thought I knew someone and I did not.
I certainly thought it was light. I thought it was funny. To me it’s still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on. It’s still stupid. It’s all it was”
WORDS Bill Murray reflects on inappropriate misconduct set incident: “I thought it was funny” (NME, 7/4/25)
AND…
• Murray in 2022: “The world’s different. What I always thought was funny as a little kid isn’t necessarily the same as what’s funny now”
• “When someone has an episode like mine, the world goes searching for more proof that this person is a monster. An absolute monster. I’ve had interactions with hundreds of thousands of people over 40, 50 years. You can come up with half a dozen [with bad experiences]. If you really worked, you’d probably come up with a couple dozen”
• “It’s worth taking Bill’s version of events with a grain of salt, especially since he doesn’t seem to have much remorse. A clear missing component to this story is the contents of the actual complaint”
Actor HELEN MIRREN, age 79, who “is opposed to a female James Bond & instead believes in telling real stories of women in espionage”, says…
“‘Women have always been a major and incredibly important part of the Secret Service. And very brave. If you hear about what women did in the French Resistance, they’re amazingly, unbelievably courageous. So I would tell real stories about extraordinary women who’ve worked in that world.
The whole series of James Bond – it was not my thing. I never liked James Bond. I never liked the way women were in James Bond.
The whole concept of James Bond is drenched [in] and born out of profound sexism.’
Mirren faced a barrage of sexism at the start of her career – it’s impossible to find an early review of her work without some kind of veiled reference to her body.
Old reviews praise her ‘voluptuous’ performance or say she was ‘bursting with grace’ on stage. Some skip the pretence entirely and just directly discuss the size of her breasts.
In a 1975 interview – Mirren’s first chat-show appearance – Michael Parkinson asks whether her ‘equipment’ prevents her from being taken seriously.
‘Because serious actresses can’t have big bosoms, is that what you mean?’ she retorts, before putting Parkinson in his place. Now 50 years old, the clip routinely does the rounds on social media, with many praising Mirren’s deft handling of overtly sexist questions.
Mirren says: ‘Half a century ago, the only person who got criticised for that interview was me. [This kind of sexism] bothered me very much, because I didn’t want to be a movie star or TV star – I wanted to be a classical actress and I felt I was carrying this thing on my back. That it was kind of attached to me. It didn’t really mean anything, as far as I was concerned, but it was attached to me and I couldn’t escape it.
I realised: you just have to live with the cards you’ve been dealt. I came to terms with it. You’ve got to have a sense of humour about it’”
WORDS Helen Mirren: “The whole concept of James Bond is drenched in profound sexism” (Evening Standard, 27/3/25)
Actor JASON ISAACS, age 61, & dad to Lily, 22, & Ruby, 19, said about whether a “full-frontal nude scene” – in which his White Lotus character Tim Ratliff “had his penis hanging out of his bathrobe in front of his kids – featured a prosthetic:
‘A lot of people are debating it. It’s all over the internet. It’s interesting because this year’s best actress is Mikey Madison at the Oscars. I don’t see anybody discussing her vulva, which was on [screen] all the time.
It’s interesting that there’s a double standard for men. But when women are naked – Margaret Qualley also in The Substance – nobody would dream of talking to her about her genitalia or her nipples.
I don’t think people really want to know how the sausage is made. What is the obsession with penises? It’s an odd thing.’
Cast members Sam Nivola and Sarah Catherine Hook said ‘it was really funny’ shooting the scene. ‘He was very excited to do it,’ Hook said. Nivola added: ‘He took pride in the prosthetic. He’s like: It’s my fake dick scene today!’”
WORDS Jason Isaacs Shuts Down White Lotus Penis Question and Says “It’s Odd There’s a Double Standard” With Male Nude Scenes (Variety, 14/3/25)
MORE FROM ISAACS
• “Isaacs clarified: ‘I said the wrong words in the wrong way. I used the phrase “double standard”, which I didn’t mean at all. There is a [different] double standard – women have been monstrously exploited and men haven’t. My point wasn’t that men have had a harder time than women: that would be absurd. Women have had a monstrous time on camera forever and I hope to God that is changing. Women have been exploited forever in cinema, made to be gratuitously naked and asked totally inappropriate questions.’
He believes part of the reason White Lotus features plenty of penises – at least 3 this season – is to ‘redress the unfair balance’ of nudity on screen but feels that journalists asking if his character’s penis is his own is ‘embarrassing and inappropriate.
I’d been asked so many times: “Are you wearing a prosthetic?” Which means: “Have I seen your actual penis? It’s very important for me to know if I’ve seen your penis.” It just strikes me as a bit weird and slightly obsessive’”
• “Isaacs told told makeup head Rebecca Hickey: ‘I just want it not to be distracting. It needs to be “Regular Joe”. Because the scene, you know, it’s not about the pee pee – it’s about power play and sex. It’s about whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident and what that means. She says: “Yeah, I got you. Regular Joe.”’
When Isaacs saw the ‘regular’ prosthetic, he joked: ‘I mean, it’s bigger than that. It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field! The thing is ginormous’”
Actor MICHELLE WILLIAMS, age 44, says about the show Dying For Sex, based on the story of Molly Kochan…
“‘I’ve done any and all number of sexual situations in my 30-year career. But I’d never masturbated on film and I was nervous. It’s easier to portray mutual desire than just desire for oneself.’
Cancer robbed Molly of a marital sex life that wasn’t all that anyway. She’s never had an orgasm with another person and that’s all she wants. So she leaves her husband to start chasing tail.
Williams says: ‘She bought lingerie, took beautiful photos of herself, hid her scars, sent selfies out and communicated with strangers. When she was no longer able to have bodily encounters, she sexted from her hospital bed. She’s saying: I’ll continue to seek pleasure in this body.’
What’s radical is the sex: ‘We made this pre-All Fours,’ says Williams of Miranda July’s semi-autobiographical novel about menopause and female sexual appetite.
Omertà around talking about menopause was so strong until recently that a woman in her 40s might ‘never have had the conversation. Nobody mentioned it was in my future: not my mother, grandmother or a doctor.’
A mould-breaking thing about Dying For Sex is the delight between Molly and the people she sleeps with. It’s what’s liable to happen when people desire each other and are open about what they want.
She’s in an Uber with a guy, on their way to have sex, when it gets too much for him and he prematurely ejaculates: ‘It isn’t: “How lame.” It’s thrilling to radically accept people.’
Sexual fulfilment eluded Molly: she was abused by her mum’s boyfriend when she was 7, ‘split off from herself because of it. Part of her is frozen in time. Her sexual journey is trying to repair the wound.’
Something rarely said about dying or menopause is that it can be characterised by sexual voraciousness: ‘This is what Molly faced: how is she going to use her body sexually when it’s failing her? She figures it out.
What could make you feel more alive than sex? If you want to explore sexually through menopause or illness, you need to become creative’”
WORDS “I’ve never masturbated on film before”: Michelle Williams’ orgasm odyssey in Dying for Sex (Guardian, 28/3/25)
This book is a piece of trans joy at a time when it feels hard to find. 2025 feels like such a dark period to be living through as a trans person. While it might be hard sometimes to put yourself in another person’s shoes, trust trans people enough to let you know that it is just euphoric, beautiful and what a feeling to have that you can finally feel safe in your own body.
I would tell my 25-year-old-self what I would tell my 4-year-old self: the parts of you people criticise and try to villainise you for are the best parts of yourself – your hyper-femininity, innocence, camp, quirks and softness.
A lot of people take my ease, softness and excitement towards life as infantilising myself. But I’m constantly fascinated by the world in a world that thrives off pessimism.
I think of my time as a non-binary human being to be kind of in Mario Kart where you’re hopping from a cloud to another platform. Womanhood is where I was supposed to go. I’d come out as a 14-year-old, I guess as gay – at 24 as non-binary. What I’m looking for still is a connection to other women.
A lot of my followers are Gen Z. It gives me hope that we’re going to eventually move in the right direction”
🌈 WORDS Trans Activist and Influencer Dylan Mulvaney on Becoming a Right-Wing Lightning Rod – All Of It (WNYC, 14/3/25)
MORE FROM MULVANEY
• “We’re living through a time of the Barbie movie, girl dinner [a TikTok trend], a huge celebration of femininity. Unfortunately trans women are not being allowed that same celebration. Celebration of femininity scares a lot of people because: what does it mean to celebrate those soft parts of ourselves and the parts that maybe don’t put on such a tough exterior”
• “We as trans people need to be finding joy because it is a direct fight back at what [the government] is saying. Because if I'm finding joy, love, success – if I can put a book out now – what they’re saying about me isn’t true”
• “As a trans person, we need to take all the allyship we can get in whatever form that comes in”
Actor ASHLEY WALTERS, age 42 & dad to 8 kids, says about starring in Netflix show Adolescence…
“We’re always talking about hoodies, people stabbing each other, more sentences and years in prison. But no one actually breaks down why people are getting to this stage. Adolescence shows you anyone can slip into this from any walk of life.
I’ve always understood how difficult it is for young men to talk about what they’re going through before it gets to this stage.
So I’ve made a point of talking to my sons just like about how they feel and what’s happening and trying to stay their hero for as long as possible so they feel they can come and tell me what’s going on. It hasn’t always worked out that way.
This is a great show to promote that, because there’s a huge problem with the buzz phrase ‘toxic masculinity’. And it’s important for role models to step up and be there to support their sons”
WORDS Adolescence star Ashley Walters says harrowing script had him crying most nights (Radio Times, 13/3/25)
MORE FROM WALTERS
• “One of the great things we can do as men is set the example that to be vulnerable is OK”
• “It’s really important that we make it normal to have discussions just like women and young girls do about feelings.
That was one of the big reasons why I wanted to be a part of this conversation we’re creating: I’m a strong advocate for, as a man, being vulnerable, crying in front of my friends.
It’s even difficult for me, so I can’t imagine how young men are now – everything that’s going on around social media in their lives, how difficult it is for them to start this conversation”
• “My mum, my aunt, my gran – they were my male role models as well as my female role models. I always had the space to cry. I never saw that as an issue. I’ve been the same with my kids. They’ve seen me in all sorts of positions and I don’t shy away from that”
• On playing the detective: “This man was so invested in the case because he’s a dad. Everyone is going to find a bit of themselves here.
If you’re a parent, this has to resonate with you.
I don’t know what the solution is for knife crime. I just hope shows like this create conversations between parents and children”
Ex football manager GARETH SOUTHGATE – age 54 & dad to Mia, 24, and Flynn, 20 – delivered, without notes, a Richard Dimbleby BBC TV lecture entitled The Beautiful Game: Building Belief And Resilience In A Younger Generation about a lack of mentors causing young men to be reluctant to express their emotions and boys not being given the chance to experience failure then develop the resilience to overcome it, saying…
“Young people are bombarded by information at all times of the day. They are targeted with images of the perfect body, perfect career and perfect life. A beautifully crafted highlights reel where success appears to be instant and effortless. How can this make them feel good about themselves?
The solutions are complex because bad habits have been formed. But ignoring the negative impact of social media on our young people is not an option.
One topic keeps being brought to my attention and it’s parents who keep raising it. Young men are suffering, feeling isolated, grappling with their masculinity and broader place in society.
They spend time online searching for direction and are falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming, gambling and pornography.
This void is filled by a new kind of role model who do not have their best interest at heart. These are callous, manipulative and toxic influencers whose sole drive is for their own gain.
They willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, never showing emotion, and that the world – including women – is against them. They are as far away as you could possibly get from the role models our young men need.
Not everyone will win trophies or be at the top of their field. But everyone can live a life where they can constantly strive to improve.
That is how we will create a young generation, a society and a nation of which we can all be very proud. I look forward to playing whatever role I can to help make it happen”
WORDS Sir Gareth Southgate hits out at “toxic” online influencers damaging boys and young men (Evening Standard, 19/3/25)
MORE ON SOUTHGATE
• “Southgate talks about men and boys in a way almost no one in public life does.
Boys should not be seen as dangerous or inherently suspect – they are children who need care and support just as much as girls do”
• “Southgate occupies a space many others have vacated: talking about men and boys and doing the right thing in a way that almost no one else in public life does.
Improving the lot of young men will improve the lot of everyone, most obviously young women”
UK prime minister KEIR STARMER, age 62 & dad to 2 teens, was told in Parliament that the creators of the Netflix show Adolescence – which “highlights online male radicalisation and violence against girls” – are “‘calling for screenings in Parliament and schools to spark change. Will you back this campaign to counter toxic misogyny early and give young men the role models they deserve?’
Starmer said: ‘Yes. At home we are watching Adolescence with our children – I’ve got a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl – and it’s very, very good.
This violence carried out by young men influenced by what they see online is a real problem. It’s abhorrent and we have to tackle it. We are putting specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force, doing work on 999 calls.
But this is also a matter of culture. It’s important that across the whole house we tackle this emerging and growing problem’”
WORDS Keir Starmer supports calls to show Adolescence in Parliament and schools (Cosmopolitan, 20/3/25)
AND…
• “There’s a reason the debate has suddenly sparked into life: a lot of parents, a lot of people who work with young people, recognise that we may have a problem with boys and young men we need to address.
[On the Dimbleby lecture by ex football manger Gareth Southgate on “young men lacking positive role models, making them vulnerable to online influencers who promote negative ideologies about the world and women”] What he was saying was really powerful and will have resonated with a lot of parents. This is something we have to take seriously, to address. We can’t shrug our shoulders at it.
[Would a minister for men help?] I don’t think that’s the answer. I think it is time for listening carefully to what Southgate was saying and responding.
[Who are UK male role models?] I always go to sport for this: footballers, athletes. But if you ask a young person, they’re more likely to identify somebody in their school: a teacher or coach”
• MP Johnathan Brash, dad of a boy age 8, found Adolescence “so powerful and distressing I immediately went upstairs and gave my son a hug. [Parts of the show could be shown in primary schools] with discretion to protect kids from an environment that is increasing hostile and dangerous” and so they understand the dangers before they start using social media
🌈 Student VIVIAN JENNA WILSON, age 20 – who had gender dysphoria as a child then came out as trans in 2020 & whose dad is Elon Musk – says:
“I have a sharp tongue. When you spend Covid in online communities of queer people, you learn how to snap at someone in a comedic way.
One night I was like: ‘I know for a fact I am trans.’ Puberty was picking up and everything in my life was falling apart. I was having mental breakdowns in class. I could not get through days. I didn’t want to wake up. I just wanted to rot, pretty much. It was like: ‘If I stay in the closet anymore, this will take me down a very destructive path.’
I posted: ‘I’m trans. She/her pronouns’ on my public Instagram 2 days before I told my mom. I regret that: she deserved to be the first one to know.
My mom was very supportive. When I came out to her, she was like: ‘That figures.’ She pretended to be slightly surprised then was like: ‘Yeah honey. OK.’
My dad was not as supportive. I hadn’t talked to him in months so I had to get fucking parental consent to get testosterone blockers and hormone replacement therapy.
I feel obligated to talk about trans issues. As someone who did transition as a minor, I feel there’s so much villainisation of that. Trans care for minors, especially puberty blockers, is really important.
So maybe stop demonising these literal children or the people who are just trying to help them feel comfortable in their own skin.Transitioning as a minor was medically necessary for me in order to be not suicidal. I don’t feel like people realise that being trans is not a choice. So sorry to break it to you.
My transness is not an asterisk to my personhood. I value trans history, queer history and queer culture – I’d never want to distance myself from any of that.
People thrive off of fear. I’m not giving anyone that space in my mind. The only thing that gets to live free in my mind are drag queens.
I love drag. It’s on my bucket list to win a drag pageant. I’d be a drag king. What if I was a femboy drag king? I’d eat that up”
WORDS Vivian Jenna Wilson on Being Elon Musk’s Estranged Daughter, Protecting Trans Youth and Taking on the Right Online (TeenVogue, 20/3/25)
Actor GÉRARD DEPARDIEU, age 76, on trial for the alleged sexual assault of 2 women on the set of Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) in 2021, told police there was no contact with the set decorator Amélie, age 54, but said in court…
“‘I grabbed her hips so as not to slip because I was so upset by her, by the heat. It was the end of a film shoot with a man who was very tired.’
When she told him she was on the phone to find parasols for the film, he said: ‘Come and touch my big parasol. I’ll stick it in your pussy.’
Sitting on a stool in a corridor, he grabbed her pubis, waist and chest: ‘He grabbed me by the hips, pulled me towards him, trapped me with his legs. That’s where I understood the strength he had. He held me very hard. I remember his eyes – I saw this big face, red eyes, very angry, very agitated, and he was saying: “Touch my big parasol”, with a crazy look. I’ve never seen anything like that.
That fear I felt – what stands out for me is not his sexual desire but his savagery. It was the fact that he knew I was afraid – I saw his eyes light up with a kind of pleasure in making someone afraid. I remember that savagery. He really terrified me and that amused him.’
Depardieu told the judges that as he weighed 150kg at the time he couldn’t grip anyone between his thighs: ‘I would never put anyone between my legs. You can do a test if you like – with the paunch I have, I can’t do it.’
Amélie says he told her: ‘I know how to make a woman come without touching her.’
Depardieu said he used crude language on set to be ‘provocative’ and ‘relax’ people, often shouting things like: ‘Pussy! Pussy!’ He explained: ‘If it’s hot, if I’m in a bad mood, things always go on too long.
I don’t see why I would go around groping a woman, her buttocks, her breasts. I’m not somebody who rubs himself against others on the Métro. I’ve been told that exists. I don’t know about those types of things. There are so many vices I don’t know.’
Asked if he said: ‘It’s so hot I can’t get an erection’, Depardieu replied: ‘Maybe I said that, yes – why not?’”
WORDS Gérard Depardieu tells court he grabbed sexual assault accuser by hips to avoid slipping (Guardian, 25/3/25)
ACTOR GÉRARD DEPARDIEU, AGE 76, ON TRIAL
• Actor Fanny Ardant, his friend: “Every form of genius carries something extravagant, rebellious, dangerous, of embodying the monster and the saint.Yes, Gérard takes up space on set, has a big mouth, says bad things, likes to act the fool. He always gave everything like a volcano, with the worst and the best.I know things we used to tolerate are no longer tolerable.
I am a woman myself – I’ve experienced things like that; I’ve thrown out slaps and insults. I know you can say no to Gérard”
• Actor Anouk Grinberg: “What I saw on set was not seduction. It was shameful”
• Lawyer Carine Durrieu Diebolt: “Maybe you think he’s a great actor. He’s also a sexual predator. When he touches women’s bodies, he exercises his power over them”
• Lawyer Claude Vincent read out a long list of Depardieu’s alleged obscene words and crude comments: “That’s the atmosphere he’s imposing. He is a misogynist amid misogynists”
• Young actress, one of a number of women not pressing charges: “He put his hand down my shorts and my panties. I pushed his hand away. He put his hand down my shorts again. [He said: ‘Really, I thought you wanted to get somewhere in film’]”
• Gérard Depardieu [on making a “raunchy” remark]: “What do you mean raunchy? Is it to say ‘pussy’? Pussy – but I say it all the time, even to myself. I find it funny!”“I say things that can shock young people”“At 76, I am past the age of groping”
“I perhaps brushed past her in the corridor but I didn’t touch her. I didn’t commit sexual assault – I think sexual assault is more serious than a hand on a bum. That is, I didn’t put a hand on a bum.
I’m vulgar, rude, foul-mouthed, I’ll accept that – but I don’t touch”
“I’ve never of my own will touched a buttock like that, even furtively. It wouldn’t cross my mind”“I don’t see how it could be fun feeling up a woman. I am not a metro-train groper”
• Assistant director: “I want us to hear the truth and stop minimising what happened”
• Word on the street: Alain, age 62: “We’re losing our culture of flirtation. Flirting isn’t a crime – it’s part of who we are”
Yasmine, age 28: “We called it charm. But it was always about power”
Actor PAMELA ANDERSON – age 57 and mum of Brandon, 28, & Dylan, 27 – stars in The Last Showgirl…
“Ever since she went viral for going makeup-free in 2023, Pamela Anderson has been the poster child for embracing bare-faced beauty.
Anderson said: ‘I’m makeup-free at home, so why not for Paris Fashion Week? I really didn’t know anyone would notice it, but I’m glad it became a positive message.
I don’t have to be cool anymore. I can just be me. It’s very freeing to be comfortable in your own skin.’
The Baywatch alum attended festivals and awards ceremonies without a stitch of makeup. It was, she says, liberating. Lately Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez and Anne Hathaway also embraced the bare-faced look; Alicia Keys, patron saint of the anti-makeup trend, opted out in 2016.
Anderson said: ‘[Going bare-faced] was the beginning of me letting go of the image I had of myself. What is this cartoon character I’d created? OK, that was fun. But I’m not that person anymore.
I started thinking: I want to challenge the idea of beauty and this mask we put on. As soon as I took the mask off, the whole world opened up.
It just happened to be this silly thing of being at Fashion Week and saying: “I’m not going to sit in a makeup chair for 3 hours. I’m going to the Louvre.” It was a refreshing way to see everything.’
Will she wear makeup again? ‘I’m not opposed to it. I just don’t want to play the game. It felt good to look in the mirror and say: ‘I’m OK just like this’”
WORDS Why Pamela Anderson Doesn’t Wear Makeup: “I Really Didn’t Know Anyone Would Notice It” (InStyle, 7/2/25)
MORE FROM ANDERSON
• Over the years, as my kids learned about things in my past, both age appropriate and not, unfortunately, they thought I was taken advantage of in some ways. They said: ‘Whatever you’ve created, just keep being you’”
• “I cooked spaghetti for the neighbourhood – my kids saw that part of me. It hurt them to think that those other things are the only things people think of their mom. Yes, she’s been in Playboy, but we know who she is”
• “I wanted to do anything to stop being shy. When the Playboy cover [opportunity] came up, my mom said: ‘Do it.’ It led to this wild and crazy life”
• “I really feel powerful right now when everything’s very pared down. I like to see my freckles. I like when my hair isn’t done. I like just a really fresh face”
US first lady MELANIA TRUMP, age 54, mum to Barron, age 18, “in her first public remarks since her husband began his second term, lobbied for legislation to make posting revenge porn a federal crime.
Wearing a pantsuit with a vest and tie, she took a seat at a Capitol Hill roundtable to advocate for the Take It Down Act.
She said: ‘I am here with you today with a common goal – to protect our youth from online harm. The widespread presence of abusive behaviour in the digital domain affects the daily lives of our children, families and communities.’
The bill would ‘criminalise the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including AI-generated NCII (or deepfake pornography)’ and require social media companies like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat to remove content within 48 hours of a victim flagging it.
She continued: ‘I expected to see more Democrat leaders here. Surely as adults we can prioritise America’s children ahead of partisan politics.
It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content like deepfakes.
We must prioritise their wellbeing by equipping them with the support and tools necessary to navigate this hostile digital landscape.
Every young person deserves a safe online space to express themself freely, without the looming threat of exploitation or harm.’
Melania Trump’s support of the bill is a continuation of the Be Best initiative she previously launched to promote wellbeing for children including online.
Several victims spoke, including Elliston Berry, age 15 (for almost a year, Snapchat refused to remove an AI-generated deepfake image of her), and Francesca Mani, who was also 14 when she and other teens discovered deepfake images of themselves on the internet.‘A strong federal law is crucial,’ Mani said, ‘one that shifts power back to the victims, ensuring they can remove harmful images within 48 hours. That’s real protection. That’s Take it Down’”
WORDS Melania Trump speaks for first time on Capitol Hill against revenge porn (Metro, 3/3/25)
MORE FROM MELANIA TRUMP
• “Children are suffering. We need to help them and educate them”
Actor SCARLETT JOHANSSON, age 40 and mum to Rose, 10, & Cosmo, 3, was watching the filming of a December 2024 Saturday Night Live Show in which her husband, comedian Colin Jost, age 42, followed the tradition with his co-host Michael Che of finding new ways to embarrass each other: he read out a joke written for him by Che: “Costco has removed the roast beef sandwich from its menu, but I ain’t tripping. I be eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid.” Then…
“The cameras switched to show Johannson watching from a screen backstage in complete shock. ‘Oh my god!’ she said through laughs. ‘Holy shit.’
Finishing the gag, Jost said: ‘Naw, I’m just playing, baby. You know I don’t go downtown.’
Johansson said: ‘It was SO VULGAR. I just can’t believe that they went there. I was like – it was so gross. It was really gross. And like, OLD-SCHOOL GROSS.’
She’d been warned that a ‘vagina joke’ was going to be made but didn’t realise it would be at her expense: ‘I was like: “I mean, it’s a vagina joke – how bad could it be?” As soon as the Costco photo came up, I was like: “No! No, Michael!”
The fact that it took on a full To Catch A Predator-style reveal – that was so intense. All of a sudden it was like a whole bunch of people holding up lights and a guy with a video camera. They were waiting for me to react. I felt insane. I was like: I think I’m going to faint’”
WORDS Scarlett Johansson says husband Colin Jost’s “vulgar” SNL joke left her feeling “faint” (Independent, 12/3/25)
MORE FROM JOHANSSON
• “If anyone knows me, I definitely overshare. I’m not a closed book, you know? I’m politically active and vocal about it. But the anonymity of my children is very precious to me. The other day my daughter said: ‘I would love to make videos for [Johnanssons’s skincare brand] The Outset.’ She was like: ‘Why can’t I?’ And I said: ‘Well, other than the fact that you’re 10…’ The idea of being recognisable and celebrated feels fun, but then you can never stuff it back in the bottle. The reality of it is there’s a massive loss”
• “When I was younger I dated actors that had heartthrob status. That is, to me, scary. I don’t have that level. Fan crush-dom can be really hard”
Actor MILLIE BOBBY BROWN, age 21, posted on Instagram on 4/3/25 that she wanted to address something “bigger than just me and that affects every young woman who grows up under public scrutiny. It’s necessary to speak up about it.
I started in this industry when I was 10. I grew up in front of the world and for some reason, people can’t seem to grow with me. Instead they act like I’m supposed to stay frozen in time, like I should still look the way I did on Stranger Things Season 1. And because I don’t, I’m now a target.
Let’s talk about the articles, headlines and people who are so desperate to tear young women down:
• ‘Why are Gen Zers like Millie Bobby Brown ageing so badly?’ by Lydia Hawken
• ‘What has Millie Bobby Brown done to her face?’ by John Ely
• ‘Millie Bobby Brown mistaken for someone’s mom as she guides younger sister Ava through LA’ by Cassie Carpenter
• ‘Little Britain’s Matt Lucas takes savage swipe at Millie Bobby Brown’s new “mommy makeover” look’ by Bethan Edwards – amplifying an insult rather than questioning why a grown man is mocking a young woman’s appearance
This isn’t journalism. This is bullying. The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices, it’s disturbing. That some of these articles are written by women? Even worse.
We always talk about supporting and uplifting young women, but when the time comes, it seems easier to tear them down for clicks. Disillusioned people can’t handle seeing a girl become a woman on her terms, not theirs.
I refuse to apologize for growing up. I refuse to make myself smaller to fit the unrealistic expectations of people who can’t handle seeing a girl become a woman.
I will not be shamed for how I look, how I dress or how I present myself.
We have become a society where it’s so much easier to criticize than it is to pay a compliment. Why is the kneejerk reaction to say something horrible rather than to say something nice? If you have a problem with that, I have to wonder: what is it that actually makes you so uncomfortable?
Let’s do better. Not just for me, but for every young girl who deserves to grow up without fear of being torn apart for simply existing”
Comedian CHELSEA HANDLER, age 50, who is “comfortable with her nude body”, said on the Jamie Kern Lima Show that every year on her birthday she’d ski down Whistler Mountain in a bikini – sometimes topless – until her nieces and nephews “‘pointedly said: “Can you please not be topless?”
It’s freeing! Me skiing with a joint in one hand, a margarita in the other, in a bikini is exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up.’
Lima said: ‘91% of girls and women opt out of meaningful activities when they don’t like how they look. The amount of experience I missed out on because I was self-conscious. Have you ever dealt with body image?’
Handler replied: ‘Yes, of course – I’m a woman! In my 20s I would weigh myself 15 times a day. If I weighed a certain amount, I wouldn’t go out that night – I’d exercise. I’d run 2 hours then weigh myself to see how much water weight I lost.
Such a waste. I’ve wasted so many hours about my body image.
I hate that every woman in this world deals with that. I hate that our society hasn’t embraced [moving forward]. Even though we’re beginning the conversations, it’s going to take another 1,000 years for girls to understand everyone is different. You all have different parts.
I am a victim of the same thing. I still care about what I look like in a bathing suit. I’m much freer about the fact that I do have cellulite and it’s not shameful.
I also take really good care of myself because I want to look my strongest and healthiest. I want to be powerful. I lift weights because I want to be strong and ski like a badass.I also want to look good. I do care about the way I look. I’m not somebody you can excise from that argument and say I don’t feel that way”
WORDS Chelsea Handler Used to “Weigh Myself 15 Times a Day”, Now Says “I Have Cellulite and It’s Not Shameful” (People, 4/3/25)
MORE FROM HANDLER
• “In my 20s I was trying so hard, with every eating disorder you could imagine, to have this body I have now”
• On meditation: “Sometimes I’d just masturbate. They both start with ‘m’ and your brain lets you relax after both, so who cares?”
• “I have someone I’m seeing that I’m very attracted to and I like having sex with, so that’s a good little thing I have going”
FROM We Can Do Better by RENÉE ZELLWEGER (HuffPost, 5/8/2016)
“In 2014 a tabloid paper reported that I’d likely had surgery to alter my eyes. It became the catalyst for my inclusion in news stories about self-acceptance and women succumbing to social pressure to look and age a certain way.
Not that it’s anyone’s business, but I did not make a decision to alter my face and have surgery on my eyes. That the possibility was discussed among respected journalists & became a public conversation is a disconcerting illustration of news/entertainment confusion and society’s fixation on physicality.
A woman’s worth has historically been measured by her appearance. The double standard used to diminish our contributions [to society] is perpetuated by the negative conversation which enters our consciousness every day as snark entertainment.
Too skinny, too fat, showing age, better as a brunette, cellulite thighs, facelift scandal, going bald, fat belly or bump? Ugly shoes, ugly feet, ugly smile, ugly hands, ugly dress, ugly laugh – headline material which
emphasises the implied variables meant to determine a person’s worth and serve as parameters around a very narrow margin within which every one of us must exist in order to be considered socially acceptable and professionally valuable, and to avoid painful ridicule.
The message is problematic for younger generations and impressionable minds, and undoubtably triggers issues regarding conformity, prejudice, equality, self-acceptance, bullying & health.
Humiliating tabloid stories inundate people with information that does not matter. What if they remained confined to the candy jar of lowbrow entertainment and were replaced in mainstream media by more important conversations? What if we were more careful and more conscientious about the choices we make for ourselves, where we choose to channel our energy and what we buy into?
Maybe we could talk more about why we seem to collectively share an appetite for witnessing people diminished & humiliated with attacks on appearance & character and how it impacts younger generations & struggles for equality. Maybe we could talk more about our many true societal challenges and how we can do better”
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“So much for the dad bod. DAVID BECKHAM, age 49, is modelling his bodywear collection for Hugo Boss. Bodywear, by the way, appears to mean underwear.
In the ad, Beckham returns home, Bond-style, but can’t wait to rip off his sharp suit and slouch around in an armchair in nothing but his tighty whities.
He has set the bar very high for middle-aged dads who like to relax by sitting around drinking in their pants, Homer Simpson-style.
If you feel self-conscious about your soft, squishy, beer-induced centre, Beckham’s new line of smalls will not help.
In recent years, the dad bod seemed to be on the verge of widespread public acceptance, even cautious celebration, and a lot of us were congratulating ourselves on our timing: it was not uncommon for men of a certain age to emerge from the first pandemic lockdown looking like a heap of overproved sourdough. We felt ourselves to be in the dad bod vanguard – more oven-ready than beach-ready; soft, saggy and proud.
Beckham appears out of step with the new paradigm: untimely ripped, as Shakespeare might have put it. Not to mention bronzed, sculpted AND manscaped.
Unfortunately his outsize influence on our culture probably means a shift in acceptable minimum standards for the male physique, especially for us 50-and-overs, who thought we’d escaped scrutiny. If it’s possible to look like Beckham at 50, then the rest of us are transparently not committed enough. You don’t get that kind of physique by standing on one leg while you brush your teeth.
To the average fiftysomething male, Beckham’s body represents the slippage of time – all the fitness that isn’t ours because we never set aside the hours. And now those hours are gone.
But who’s had the time? Looking like David Beckham is David Beckham’s job – the rest of us have other jobs AND precious little spare time to spend drinking in our underwear. The Finns call it kalsarikännit – drinking at home in your pants – and this important form of relaxation would be undone by any obligation to look like Beckham in his signature bodywear.
Nobody says on their deathbed: ‘I wish I’d done more crunches.’ Unless you’re dying of something caused by a lack of core strength. In which case: for shame”
WORDS David Beckham is modelling in his pants again. Will he not think of his fellow middle-aged men? By Tim Dowling (Guardian, 30/1/25)
FROM BECKHAM’S WIFE VICTORIA
“My boss🖤😉”
“At this month’s Grammy awards, model & architect BIANCA CENSORI, age 29, next to her husband rapper KANYE WEST, 47, dropped her fur coat, revealing her backside clad in what appeared to be a sheer stocking, then faced the photographers. Her face was impassive as she revealed her nude body.
Censori has appeared in the tabloids at various levels of nudity, raising questions about what the couple is going for and how much agency she has in putting her entire body on display.
This stunt was a disquieting escalation. She stood in front of a sea of cameras and invited them, and us, to gawk.
And gawk we did. It’s hard not to factor in Censori’s unknowable nature, her vacant expression and wide eyes. We still stared at and shared the images.
Within minutes, photos of Censori’s naked body were everywhere from Instagram to TikTok to text messages to nearly every news website. An expressionless woman, fully exposed, as her fully clothed husband stood stone-faced next to her.
It’s hard to deny that their public dynamic feels exploitative, if not possibly abusive, at its core.
Sources say this was maybe a master plan by West to troll the world and get attention, one that Censori cosigns: the couple is not performing shock and awe for the male gaze but for the internet gaze, creating a spectacle we can’t help but take part in.
Before she disrobed, West whispered: ‘Make a scene.’ It’s a twisted version of his ex-wife (and mum of his kids) Kim Kardashian’s break-the-internet moment and raises questions about what we are cosigning. Given that we’ve never heard directly from Censori, it’s possible that we’re robotically sharing pornographic images of a woman taken under coercive control or duress.
No matter the context from which we share the images, West – a man with a history of humiliating women – wins. He doesn’t care if we’re sharing the image gleefully, with indifference just to get likes, or with a message of admonishment or concern. He probably wants to control the news cycle and power the outrage machine by using the body and sexuality of his wife for his own reasons. It’s another instance of misogyny via digital manipulation.
But with someone willing to do anything to shock the world, it’s easy to not play into their hand. All we have to do is put down our phone, delete the images and look away”
WORDS It’s Time to Stop Sharing the Photos of Bianca Censori’s Grammys Outfit (Glamour, 3/2/25)
Comedian Marcus Brigstocke, age 51 & dad of 3, who explores healthy and toxic masculinity in his new show Vitruvian Mango, recovered 7 years ago from an “awful, shameful, lonely” addiction to porn…
“‘It changed my sexual self completely. The things I was into sexually were altered by what I was seeing. It taught me there is so much elasticity in our sexuality.
[Porn addicts] have awful sex if they’re having sex at all. It’s unhappy. Unhappy-making. Afterwards they lie there thinking: “Well, that seems to have made us really quite miserable.”
[Did porn addiction change how I interacted with women?] 100%.’
Brigstocke feels lucky to be part of a generation that didn’t encounter the ‘bottomless pit’ of internet porn until early adulthood. He encountered it aged 20 – now the average age for kids to see explicit images is 11.
He says: ‘I had a conversation with my oldest son about it when he was in his early teens. I said: “You’ll see things that don’t look like love or sex or how people in the real world should treat each other.”‘
But his son had already seen ‘some stuff’.The internet is full of access points, with a sexual fetish for almost every childhood interest: ‘Some kids get filtered through anime and manga to the shitty end of that, where female characters are designed to look any age between 6 and 30. Kids think: “Is she a fox? A bunny rabbit? A child?”‘ He shudders. ‘What they can see is that she’s got human genitals. That’s the stuff young people will find online, very early doors, through a fondness for animation.’
Knowing how porn altered his sexual tastes, he worries about how extreme content can sculpt early minds and desires: ‘The dopamine flood you experience in response to extreme imagery is something you can recover from at any age.
The detox from porn takes months, but then you can start to be in the world again. I’ve quit it in all its forms. Even a scantily clothed person on Facebook I scroll past and do not pause for a split second’”
WORDS Marcus Brigstocke: “My porn addiction was shameful. It changed how I treated women” (iPaper, 28/1/25)
Actors MEG RYAN, age 63, & BILLY CRYSTAL, age 76, recreate the iconic When Harry Met Sally fake-orgasm scene in this month’s Super Bowl mayonnaise ad (tagline: “It hits the spot”)…
“At Katz’s Deli, more than 35 years later, Crystal tells Ryan: ‘I can’t believe they let us back in this place.’ Ryan says: ‘Nobody remembers that.’
They’re referring to the classic movie moment when Harry says he doesn’t believe any of the women he’s slept with have ever faked an orgasm and Sally offers a convincing demonstration in the middle of the restaurant. ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ deadpans a fellow diner (played by the mother of director Rob Reiner).
Now, as they bite into their sandwiches, Ryan says hers ‘isn’t doing it’. After squeezing mayonnaise onto her bread, she re-enacts her famous performance with gusto. ‘This one’s real,’ Crystal remarks. Actor Sydney Sweeney delivers the ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ catchphrase.
Ryan remembers the original shoot lasting all day and experiencing ‘a lot of trepidation and nerves. It was like: “What are these sounds going to be? All the levels. I don’t know if I’m going to get help.”
[Fortunately] Rob had so many significant and interesting sounds to inspire me with.’Crystal recalls: ‘He did one, took me aside and said: “I shouldn’t have done that. I just had an orgasm in front of my mother.”
[Why has the scene resonated in pop culture for over 3 decades?] No one had ever attempted to talk about that. [It evolved from a script meeting when the ‘concept of women faking orgasms’ came up] and just took everyone’s breath away.’
Ryan says: ‘Sally’s funny is behavioural; Harry’s funny is more verbal and reactive. That was important, how Harry reacted to her.’
Crystal adds: ‘And she teaches him a lesson at the same time. And doesn’t care where she is or that people are watching’”
WORDS Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal Recreate the Iconic Fake Orgasm Scene from When Harry Met Sally for Hellmann’s 2025 Super Bowl Ad (People, 29/1/25)
🌈 “Tearful football referee DAVID COOTE, age 42, took coke to ‘escape’ after being forced to hide being gay, saying…
‘I’ve had issues around my self-esteem and that relates to my sexuality. I’m gay and I’ve struggled with feeling proud of being “me” over a long period of time.
I felt a deep sense of shame during my teenage years.
I didn’t come out to my parents until I was 21. I didn’t come out to my friends until I was 25.
My sexuality isn’t the only reason that led me to be in that position. But I’m not telling an authentic story if I don’t say that I’m gay and that I’ve had real struggles dealing with hiding that.
I hid my emotions as a young ref and I hid my sexuality as well – a good quality as a referee but a terrible quality as a human being.
I loved the game. I started refereeing when I was 14.
I put on this hard exterior. Football became a place where I could go and referee and be engrossed in the game. But then I’d come home and it would be more difficult because I’m living a double sense of being.
To people in my situation, I’d say: seek help and talk to somebody, because if you bottle it up like I have done it has to come out in some way.’
Coote hopes to help break down the ‘macho world’ of Premier League football: ‘I have received deeply unpleasant abuse as a ref. To add my sexuality to that would have been really difficult.
There’s a lot to be done throughout football and more widely in society with regard to discrimination’”
🌈 WORDS Coke ref’s agony: I’m gay but hid my sexuality in macho football world…it led to behaviour I deeply regret, says shamed ex-ref David Coote (The Sun, 28/1/25)
• MORE FROM COOTE
“I hope my experiences on and off the field can be utilised in football at some point”
• FROM GAY FORMER RUGBY REF NIGEL OWENS
“Homophobia remains a problem in all sport. We still need to have conversations on creating an environment in all sport where people can feel comfortable.When you are struggling with your identity, it’s a very difficult and sometimes very dark place to be in”
Former athlete BILLIE JEAN KING, age 81 – one of the greatest tennis players in history and an advocate for female athletes and LGBT+ rights – experienced body confidence issues and says…
“‘I have an eating disorder. I was about 11 when it started, but [with tennis] I kept my weight where it should be because I knew that part of reaching my goals was to take care of my body.
I was a child in the 1950s – you can imagine the messaging I was getting was shocking. My eating disorder was under control when I was an athlete. It was after I quit that it got out of control. I was able to rein it in, but I got a lot of help.
My whole life I’ve been trying to get girls to believe in themselves and believe in their body. When I read that 48% of girls drop out of sports because someone told them they have the wrong body type, I’m like: boy, let’s go!’
King joined a line-up of influential women for Dove’s Body Confident Sport programme for girls aged 11-17, part of its Self-Esteem Project.
Fewer than half of girls feel confident about how their body looks while doing sports.
King says: ‘It’s always about our looks, and our bodies are never good enough. We’re never good enough because we’re taught to be perfect. That is ridiculous. I started the Women’s Sports Foundation and we want girls to believe in themselves.’
Dove’s powerful 30-second ad featuring a re-recording of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run aired during last week’s Super Bowl.
‘Dove has reached 114 million girls in 153 countries to try to get them to have more self-confidence, to believe in their bodies,’ says King.
‘Girls are socialised not to trust our bodies, which is ridiculous, and boys are taught to be brave all the time, which is not fair to them either.If we can give girls aged 11-17 self-confidence in their bodies, that is huge.
For girls, if they are in sports they tend to become leaders and they’re able to follow their dreams. This goes much deeper and broader than just being in sports’”
#KeepHerConfident
WORDS Billie Jean King On Joining Dove’s Squad To Keep Girls In Sports (Forbes, 4/2/25)
“Tech billionaires are getting their hyper-masculine affairs in order. Meta founder MARK ZUCKERBERG, age 40, argued: ‘Masculine energy is good… Having a culture that celebrates aggression a bit more has its merits. It’s 1 thing to say we want to be welcoming… and another to basically say: “Masculinity is bad.”’
He credited his martial arts experience for helping him to redefine his own relationship with masculinity and that hanging out with his male friends while they ‘beat each other’ is a ‘positive experience’.
Along with comments that sound copied and pasted from a manosphere subreddit, Zuckerberg said Meta has scrapped fact checkers and DEI [diversity equity & inclusion] policies.
Zuckerberg is living by his move-fast-and-break-things motto. But when the man who created a website to rank his female classmates’ attractiveness is revealed to still be a misogynist, are we surprised?
[Tech bros] like him oversee corporations that impact our digital lives. When their attitudes and behaviours veer further towards the red-pilled manosphere, it’s worrying. Manosphere ideas exist in the dark corners of digital spaces but cement their legitimacy by entering the political arena.
Zuckerberg’s push for even more masculine energy in workplaces will legitimise what many in the manosphere believe: that masculinity is in crisis. When billionaires spout that rhetoric, it emboldens others to continue sexism and misogyny.
You can’t really name a country where women are safe, free and equal to men. 1 woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by a partner or family member. The gender pay gap widens. Rights and freedoms are reversed in some nations. No country has gender equality.
Arguing that workplaces need to embrace masculine energy implies that feminine energy or women have taken over, which is not the case. If feminism had taken over, we wouldn’t have a widening gender pay gap. Women wouldn’t lose their lives at the hands of partners or family members. Reproductive rights wouldn’t be continuously eroded and rolled back. Those things are happening at an accelerating, alarming rate.
What workplaces and society definitely don’t need is more masculine energy or any celebration of aggression. Workplaces need softer, more feminine energy to foster more inclusive, understanding environments.
Misogyny and violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global crisis. Zuckerberg has fanned the flames of misogyny to keep hold of money and power. Shame on him”
WORDS Mark Zuckerberg is wrong – “masculine energy” is the last thing we need more of in the workplace (Stylist, 14/1/25)
🌈 Right Rev MARIANN BUDDE, the Episcopal bishop of Washington – age 65 & mother of 2 sons – “ruffled feathers in the Trump administration after using her homily [sermon] to appeal to the president to have mercy on the LGBT+ community.
Addressing Donald Trump at an inaugural prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral, Budde said: ‘There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.’
In reference to Trump’s inaugural address, in which he suggested God protected him from the bullet fired at him in a July 2024 assassination attempt, Budde said: ‘You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.’
Budde also took the opportunity to appeal to Trump over the plight of immigrants in the US: ‘The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbours. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger – for we were once strangers in this land.’
Trump responded angrily to Budde on his Truth Social platform: ‘The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart … She and her church owe the public an apology!’
Budde’s appeal came after Trump, just hours after being inaugurated, signed an executive order demanding that federal agencies only recognise two genders, male and female.
After the livestreamed service, Georgia congressman Mike Collins took to X to blast the bishop, posting: ‘The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.’Budde is a US citizen”
🌈 WORDS Washington bishop pleas with Trump to “have mercy” on “scared” LGBTQ+ children (Attitude, 22/1/25)
MORE FROM BUDDE
• “I wanted to emphasise respecting the honour and dignity of every human being”
Actor & director JUSTIN BALDONI, age 41 & dad of 2, released outtakes from a romantic scene in his film It Ends With Us as evidence that the sexual harassment allegations by his co-star BLAKE LIVELY, age 37 & mum of 4, are unfounded…
“Lively says the behind-the-scenes footage of the pair filming a slow dance is ‘damning’. She is suing Baldoni, accusing him of engaging in ‘inappropriate and unwelcome behaviou’” and of a smear campaign to ‘destroy’ her reputation. He countersued, claiming she had made a ‘duplicitous attempt to destroy’ him.
Lively’s lawyers say the clip shows him ‘repeatedly leaning in, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells and talking with her out of character’.
Every moment was improvised by him with no discussion or consent in advance and no intimacy coordinator present.
Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognise Lively’s discomfort and her attempts at levity to try to deflect
the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.
At one point Baldoni slowly dragged his lips from Lively’s ear and down her neck as he said: ‘It smells so good.'
None of this was in character or based on the script. He was caressing her with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles. When she later objected to this behaviour, his response was: ‘I’m not even attracted to you.’
Baldoni’s legal documents said: ‘When he offered up that he and his wife often just look into each other’s eyes silently, Lively responded: “Like sociopaths” and laughed. Slow dancing requires some amount of physical touching.’
In the clip Baldoni asks the camera operator to film their lips ‘super close’, to which Lively agrees. He then says they should ‘keep restraint’.
Their bitter legal battle continues”
WORDS Acting or harassment? Stars at odds over out-takes (BBC, 22/1/25)
Actor KATE BECKINSALE, age 51, posted on Insta:
“[The Blake Lively case] highlights this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting or harmful in this industry.
On one film I was referred to over the walkie-talkie and to my face as ‘that cunt’ because I’d said: I’m finding it difficult; my co-star is drunk every day. He was going through something. I have sympathy for that but I was waiting, as was the crew, 6 hours a day for him to learn his lines. It meant I didn’t get to see my daughter in the evenings.
The studio’s response was to give me a bike to ride around the lot while I was waiting. Then of course I was called a cunt and a bitch.
On 2 sets I was put on such a strict diet and exercise programme that I lost my periods.
A certain kind of actor gets a thrill out of legally being able to harm a woman in a fight sequence. [In one] I was harmed – there were MRIs proving it. I was gaslit and made to feel like I was the problem, blamed and ostracised, left out of cast dinners, not spoken to as soon as I mentioned there was a problem.
[The day after having a miscarriage] I was forced by a publicist [to do a photoshoot]. I said: ‘I can’t. I am bleeding. I don’t want to change my clothes in front of people I don’t know. I’m bleeding out a miscarriage.’ She was like: ‘You have to or you’ll be sued.’I was felt up by somebody I trusted on a crew [then told by fellow actresses that it didn’t happen].
[Harassing women on set] has been going on forever. I have about 47 million stories similar to this. What is really depressing is I see a lot of men going around saying: ‘The climate is different and so much better.’ It fucking isn’t!
Complaining about abuse should not beget more abuse. At work inviolable safeguarding should be in place. It should not be expected of women who have been harmed, insulted, hurt, shamed or in any other way abused – mostly with at least 100 witnesses – to have to be ‘one of the boys’ and take it on the chin or face retribution for having been abused”
WORDS Kate Beckinsale reveals years of abuse and sexism on set: “Forced to do photoshoot day after miscarriage” (The Independent, 31/12/24)
Actor & former model BROOKE SHIELDS, age 59, writes in her book Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old…
“My gynaecologist asked if I felt discomfort because of my labia. I said: ‘Only in tight jeans, spin classes and every romantic moment ever.’
(I apologise if this is too graphic or TMI. I’d be lying if I said I’m not embarrassed to share this very intimate information. But if we are to change the way we approach women’s health, we need to bring up uncomfortable but very real issues. Shame is not an option.)
My labia had been an issue since high school and one I’d been ashamed of forever. I joked with my best friend: ‘It’s like you’re in a boxing gym and you have 2 little speed bags between your legs.’ It hurt and it was in the way.
My gynaecologist said it was very common and labial reduction procedure would decrease my discomfort. Why should that be reduced to a cosmetic choice, as if I wanted a more photogenic labia so I could be in adult films? Like many important procedures for women, it wasn’t covered by insurance.
Afterwards the doctor said: ‘I tightened you up! Gave you a little rejuvenation!’
Wait, what?? I was shocked, speechless.‘
After 2 kids, everything is looser,’ he said. But I had C-sections and a scarred, more restricted cervix, I replied. I had never asked to be ‘tightened’ or ‘rejuvenated’ (translation: given a younger vagina). I felt numb.
This man surgically altered my body without my consent but I didn’t want talk of my lady parts on the front page of every paper.
The most intimate parts of my body had been a public focal point already. All I could think was: ‘Why can’t everybody just leave my vagina alone?’ (This will be the bit that makes headlines. Whatever. Women deserve all the information.)
I noticed a difference in my body – not a good one. My sex drive is pretty typical for my age: I like intimacy but don’t need it every day. And the procedure did not enhance my pleasure.
Fuck that guy! He had no right to do what he did. If it happened to me now I’d make my own blaring headline and blast it everywhere”
WORDS EDITED FROM Brooke Shields Got a “Bonus” Labia Rejuvenation Without Her Consent: “Why Can’t Everybody Just Leave My Vagina Alone” (People, 10/1/25)
Actor & creator of non-alcoholic beer Bero TOM HOLLAND, age 28, who is engaged to actor Zendaya, also 28, “says that when he’s not working he leads a very quiet life filled with soup, cute dogs and hobbies that include carpentry and golf.
It sounds an awful lot like he looks forward to retiring from the spotlight to be a trad dad.
Holland says: ‘When I have kids, you will not see me in movies anymore. Golf and dad. I will just disappear off the face of the earth.’
[On set there’s] ‘that perfect thing when a director will give you a note you don’t agree with – or I know that [Zendaya] doesn’t particularly like – and it’s just that familiar glance at each other of like: Can’t wait to talk about that later.’
He’s more than happy standing in @Zendaya’s shadow, especially at her film premieres: ‘Because it’s not my moment, it’s her moment and if we go together, it’s about us.’
Heterosexual men, are you reading this??? Listen to Spiderman”
WORDS Tom Holland Sounds Psyched to Be a Trad Dad (Jezebel, 3/1/25)
MORE FROM HOLLAND
• [In 2021] “I’ve spent the last 6 years being so focused on my career. I want to take a break and focus on starting a family and figuring out what I want to do outside of this world.
If I’m at a wedding or party I’m always at the kids’ table hanging out. My dad’s been such a great role model for me. I’ve got that from him. So I think I’d be a primary school teacher or something.I love kids. I can’t wait to be a dad. I can wait and I will – but I can’t wait!”
• [On giving up drinking in England, where socialising and alcohol are intertwined] “I couldn’t go to the pub and have a lime soda or go out for dinner. I was really struggling. I said to myself: ‘Why am I enslaved to this drink and obsessed by the idea of having this drink?’
[Getting sober] was the best thing I’ve ever done. Things that would go wrong on set and normally set me off I could take in my stride. I had such better mental clarity.I’m happy to say it: I was definitely addicted to alcohol. I’m not shying away from that”
• “I was doing a show with Zendaya. I thought: ‘I’ll have to do something incredibly bold.’ So naturally I decided to dance in the rain in fishnet tights”
Actor KIERAN CULKIN – age 42, dad to a girl & boy aged 5 and 3 – would like to be a full-time dad…
“Kieran got in trouble with his wife for asking if they could have more kids as he picked up his Emmy on live TV. Their first was a surprise: ‘We’d been together for 8 years and never took precautions.
A friend with kids said: “Your quality of life goes in the toilet.” There’s no avoiding that at first. Now it’s obviously easier. My quality of life is not in the toilet anymore.
Another friend was like: “You’ll think back to your parents and how they did it.” I haven’t.’
His dad, an actor, was a bully, a drunk, ‘physically and mentally abusive’ to his brother Macaulay ‘Home Alone’ Culkin. He left when Kieran was 12.
Kieran is conscientious. His wife Jazz Charton posted: ‘Considering he didn’t grow up with a good example of what a dad is he’s really quite good at it.’
He laughs at the idea that they might have done family therapy: ‘Us siblings, we’re already cooked. We’re baked.’
He credits his mum with bringing them up. It was a childhood of extremes: 7 kids sharing bunks in 1 bedroom, then being on movie sets and flying by helicopter to Michael Jackson’s Neverland.Kieran’s career decisions are weighed against whether it’s worth being away from his kids: ‘I’m not good at being separated from my family. I’m very much terrible at it.’ Once he tried to put on a brave face saying goodbye at an airport then broke down.
Even the worst days with the kids are the best in his life: ‘One day the kids will get older and not want to be with me.’
He embraces the chaos. His son gets car sick so Kieran brings vomit bags, extra clothes. At hotels he loves setting out their teddies, toys, ‘the diapers, stuff like that’.
He’ll switch on the news ‘and go: “We’re all fucked.” It’s hard enough just having a job, raising kids as closely as I possibly can, managing a marriage.’ So he stays sane by getting through life ‘moment to moment’ – taking stuff out of the dryer and folding it, putting it in a pile. That’s how he copes? ‘That and alcohol’”
WORDS Kieran Culkin on pranks, parenting and why his famous family doesn’t need therapy: “Us siblings, we’re already cooked” (Guardian, 28/12/24)