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Jodi Albert, who played Debbie Dean on the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, is a far cry from her days.

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A soap favourite who appeared on Hollyoaks during the noughties looks unrecognisable nearly two decades after her final appearance on the Channel 4 drama.

In 2002, Jodi Albert, who plays Debbie Dean in the fictional Chester town, popped up in the town and created a powerful drama.

She arrived with her older sister Steph Dean (Carley Stenson) along with the famous Dean family, which included her parents Frankie (Helen Pearson) and Johnno (Mark Powley), as well as her brothers Jake (Kevin Sacre) and Craig (Guy Burnet).

With moments of setting foot in Hollyoaks, Debbie caught the eye of the local lads, including Dan Hunter (Andrew McNair), whom she later dated before cheating with his best mate.

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Away from working at Tony Hutchinson’s (Nick Pickard) restaurant, Debbie wanted to become famous and took part in a reality show. She also strived to launch a singing career.

But tragedy struck on Christmas Day 2024, when her on/off boyfriend Dan’s rally car exploded and killed him. This sparked the beginning of Debbie’s exit and left Hollyoaks in 2005.

Jodi made several guest appearances as Debbie, her last one being in December 2006, despite leaving the show after three years. The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and Casualty also made guest appearances for the actress.

Before becoming well-known on Hollyoaks, Jodi, now 42, was a teenager in the British band Girl Thing.

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The pop group released a top 10 single in 2000 with Last One Standing, and they reunited in 2014 for The Big Reunion.

In 2008, she also joined the Irish girl group Wonderland in partnership with Louis Walsh. Their album peaked at number eight in the UK charts before splitting in 2011.

Away from show business, Jodi is also a qualified yoga instructor. In 2020, the actress took to Instagram to reveal she’d completed a 14-week course to teach a variety of yoga poses.

Kian Egan and Westlife’s Maria Egan

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Jodi and Westlife singer Kian Egan, 45, wed in a romantic ceremony in Barbados in 2009, and they have three sons, Koa, Zekey, and Cobi.

Kian said at the time, “I took Jodi to Barbados in 2003,” explaining why they chose Barbados as their wedding location. Our only previous relationship was eight weeks.

You can tell you’re on vacation as soon as you arrive in Barbados because everyone there is friendly and relaxed. It resembles Ireland a little bit.

“We enjoyed the place so much we decided to have our wedding there”, reports OK!.

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The couple already reside in Barbados, but they made the decision to raise their children in Sligo, the couple’s home state.

In the early 2000s, the Westlife star, who resides with his wife Jodi and their three children, constructed the stunning Strandhill beachside home with family in mind.

Kian told RSVP Live: “I suppose as the years went on and we got married and started having children and talked about the idea of where they would grow up and what type of lifestyle we wanted them to have, it just felt like no matter where we went in the world, Strandhill was the place for us.”

The couple and their children travel to Barbados for warmer climates, where they enjoy surfing, in the winter months, to escape Ireland.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry engaged in a direct conversation about the ongoing partnership they have with streaming service Netflix, but a royal expert believes she was “extraying the truth.”

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Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has had a busy few weeks, from making an unexpected appearance at Paris Fashion Week to meeting with high-profile friends in New York City and accepting a prestigious award alongside Prince Harry.

In one of her most recent appearances, she participated in a comprehensive discussion about her business plans and discussed how things are with Netflix now that Harry and Meghan’s relationship with the streaming service giant underwent a significant change.

Meghan compared the couple’s “first look” agreement, which allows Netflix to submit any ideas they have first, but if the company fails, they can move them elsewhere, to that of the Obamas, but one royal expert is a little more skeptical about the current state of affairs.

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Meghan and Harry signed a significant, exclusive deal with Netflix in 2020 that was reportedly worth £75 million.

Although the Duchess’s own lifestyle show, With Love, Meghan, received mixed reviews, the self-titled documentary series about their love story broke viewership records for the streaming service.

Meghan praised the new agreement during the conversation for the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit 2025 as a positive step forward, saying: “My husband and I were in an overall agreement with Netflix, and then, once that had come its term, the extension of it was now being in a first-look deal.

Which is also exciting because it enables us to shop content that might not be appropriate for Netflix but has a home elsewhere at the same time as it does our partners.

The Duchess also said she was “grateful” for the “creative partnership” she has with the streaming company. However, expert Jennie Bond, formerly royal correspondent for the BBC, told the Mirror exclusively that she thought Meghan’s comments were “a bit of a stretch”.

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The expert argued that the new Netflix deal is a sign of strength, which is “well, I think it’s a bit stretch to say.” Who wouldn’t, however, put a positive spin on something like that? And from what I understand, Netflix is currently commissioning programs in a fairly routine manner. Meghan is free to try her ideas elsewhere because it lessens the pressure on her because she is no longer bound to a certain number of projects.

The royal commentator added that Meghan’s professional life opened with the focus on “being an influencer and businesswoman.”

“She has now reverted to being an influencer and is learning how to become a businesswoman. Good for her, ” she said, “I’m sure it’s important she keeps her profile as high as possible by speaking at summits and conventions. And diversifying to share her recipes and tips on social media seems an obvious move which, I think, could prove both popular and very lucrative. She’s an independent woman forging her own way in the world after her brief incarnation of being ‘Royal’.”

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A new revelation claims the former Duke of York attempted to uncover information about Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew’s accuser, after he announced he was giving up his royal titles.

A recently published bombshell email allegedly suggests that the disgraced ex-duke attempted to smear his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, is one of the disturbing new allegations that the Metropolitan Police is now looking into.

The former Duke of York has consistently and vehemently refuted allegations that he had sex with Virginia Epstein, the accuser of Jeffrey Epstein’s death, when she was 17 years old. However, his relationship with the convicted paedophile Epstein has remained largely unaffected by his position within the Royal Family.

The 65-year-old retired from performing public duties five years ago. With permission from King Charles III, his older brother, he has now voluntarily given up using his titles and honors. Andrew made the revelation in a statement released by Buckingham Palace on Friday evening that he would no longer use his “title or the honors which have been given to me” and that he would choose to place “my duty to my family and the country first.”

However, more alleged behavior revelations have surfaced in recent days, making it difficult for The Firm to put the so-called “Andrew problem” to rest.

READ MORE: Prince Andrew LIVE: Disgraced royal cancels Sarah Ferguson’s birthday bash

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According to The Mail on Sunday, Andrew allegedly requested Virginia’s private information from his taxpayer-funded Met bodyguard, even providing her birthdate and private social security number in an ostensible effort to uncover dirt. It is not possible that the officer followed this request.

Andrew sent an email to Ed Perkins, then press secretary to his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, just before the Mail published the now-infamous snap of him craning his arm around Virginia at Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia mews house, according to the MoS.

According to Andrew, who allegedly told Perkins in this email, “It would also seem that she has a criminal record in the [United] States. For the purposes of her investigation with XXX, the on-duty ppo]personal protection officer], I have given her [date of birth] and social security number.

Late last night, a Met spokesperson claimed that they were “actively looking into the claims made.” Virginia’s relatives, who have confirmed that she didn’t have a criminal record, have also stated that these new allegations “expose the lengths that those implicated attempt to discredit and defame survivors.” The family is now requesting an investigation into how Andrew allegedly obtained this privileged information.

Victoria Derbyshire and Laura Kuenssberg sat down Sunday morning to update the Met. She continued, “If you’d like, I want to give you this breaking news, it’s from the Metropolitan Police.” They claim they will investigate allegations that Prince Andrew directed his bodyguard to eavesdrop on Virginia Giuffre, who had accused Prince Andrew of sexual abuse. She claims that when she was 17 years old, she was forced to have sex with him.

In response to this news, broadcaster Emily Maitlis, whose bombshell BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew in 2019 expedited his downfall, replied: “I’m glad that they are.”

Do you have a tale to tell? Contact me at julia@gmail.com. banim@reachplc.com

READ MORE: Prince Andrew was ‘reluctant’ to lose title and become ‘commoner’ says royal author

The former Top Gear host asked one of the Chinese tourists why they were watching his Amazon Prime program Clarkson’s Farm. They were inundated with Chinese tourists.

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Jeremy Clarkson, the farmer and TV personality, was labelled “incompetent” by a visitor to his Diddly Squat Farm Shop, an interaction he found “tremendous”.

The 65-year-old has been lauded for his farming endeavours in recent years, which have highlighted the hard graft of UK farmers. His efforts have been so influential that there have been calls for the former Top Gear host to stand for Parliament, an idea he has consistently dismissed.

One branch of his Cotswolds-based farming empire is his Diddly Squat Farm Shop, where he sells produce from his farm. Despite being open for some time, the shop continues to draw queues.

However, Jeremy has recently noticed an increase in Chinese visitors both to his shop and watching his show on Amazon Prime.

He became intrigued and asked one reason why they were watching, which gave an unanticipated response.

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In his column for The Sunday Times, he wrote: “So why are they watching? It’s a question I put to one of the visitors to the farm shop. His answer was tremendous. ‘It’s because we cannot believe how incompetent you are.’

It makes a nice change to watch a fat man f****** everything up because they are bombarded with tales of successful people doing things well.

Jeremy’s expertise may be doubted by tourists, but it seems like he’s doing a good enough job to pique the interest of foreign officials.

He continued, “We recently hosted a Chinese agricultural delegation who were on a fact-finding mission in the UK.

“The high-ups are very interested in what we’re up to,” it seems so obvious.

Really very interested, indeed. I showed them one of our hen houses, which may appear like a miniature Romany caravan but is actually quite high-tech inside.

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Various degrees of support exist for Jeremy’s plans to pursue a political career, given his influence on British farming and his efforts to highlight farmers’ struggles.