Category Entertainment News

Comedy legend Ricky Gervais has opened up on the moment his life changed as he ‘took a punt’ after finding himself in a daunting position

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Ricky Gervais has revealed the moment his life changed forever after he took a “punt”. The comedian, now 64, admits he was facing the daunting situation of losing his job when he was 37.

However, rather than sit a panic over what was happening, the After Life star and creator used it as an opportunity to create a new path. And he took to social media to share his message with his followers in what is a tough time for many workers.

Ricky posted an old image of himself on Twitter /X. He wrote alongside it: “It’s now 27 years since I was made redundant and given a few grand.

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“I decided that if I was careful, I could live off the money for 6 months trying to become a comedian before I had to get another job. I was 37. Worth a punt.”

He shared the same message on Instagram and on both platforms he was met with a positive response. On Instagram user wrote: “Thank God you were made redundant! We wouldn’t have laughed as much as we have if you hadn’t!”

Another agreed, saying: “Can’t thank the guy that fired you enough,” with a hands raised emoji. And a third simply called the star “inspiring” and added a red love heart emoji.

Ricky has went on to become one of the most popular comedians in the UK and has broken America. He has enjoyed a number of sell-out tours since that decision, as well as hit television shows such as The Office.

Now, he is set to return to Netflix with the cast of After Life for another heartfelt comedy series. After Life won the plaudits in 2019 as it followed Ricky as main character Tony as he navigates life after the devastating death of his wife Lisa.

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Fans continue to say it is arguably his best work to date. However, he will be hoping his newest venture can outdo it.

The new adult comedy series will be called Alley Cats and has been created by the from Emmy and BAFTA award-winning comedian. As well playing a role himself, Ricky will be joined by After Life stars Tom Basden (who played Matt), Tony Way (who played Lenny), David Earl (who played Brian), Kerry Godliman (who played Lisa), Jo Hartley (who played June), Diane Morgan (who played Kath).

Fans may also recognise Natalie Cassidy, who is best known for playing the part of Sonia Fowler in EastEnders, and After Life’s Andrew Brooke. The show has been teased being “a slacker sitcom created by and starring the multi award-winning Ricky Gervais”.

Netflix said of its announcement: “The adult animation follows the trials and tribulations of a group of feral British cats from all walks of society, who seek companionship while ruminating on everyday life.

“From the funny to the absurd, the series is packed with Gervais’ signature style of heart and social commentary that audiences have come to expect.”

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The Mirror’s Nicola Methven reveals how it really feels to play The Traitors with Claudia Winkleman looking on ahead of the celebrity version of the BBC show premiering

WalkIng in to The Traitors castle, you can’t help but feel nervous of what’s to come. Even though I’m only flanked by a bunch of fellow journalists and no one is actually being murdered or indeed winning any money, you still somehow feel like you’re in a massive competition with each other.

And it’s hard not to feel very excited by the realisation that only a few days before the likes of Stephen Fry, Clare Balding, Jonathan Ross and Kate Garraway were eating, chatting and round-tabling in the very places where we are now. With two peacocks watching their every move.

On arrival we were quickly ushered in to the beautifully decorated breakfast room – so familiar to viewers of The Traitors as the regular setting for the who-has-been-murdered moment. We all ate a bit of lunch while staring at the door and imagining Tom Daley popping in, sporting some fresh knitwear.

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The executive producers, Mike Cotton and Sarah Fay have seen their lives totally taken over by this huge hit of a show – so how was it making the psychologically intense game with starry players?

“They play it really differently because they think all know one another,” Mike explains. “But that’s really interesting because you can watch them discover and learn that their preconceived notions of each other aren’t necessarily right. They come with prior knowledge but it makes it feel fresh.”

Mike says once the game starts, they are treated in exactly the same way as any of the regular players. “You could book the biggest name in the world and they could be gone on day two,” he points out, as we wander around the castle and look at the astonishing 2,000acre grounds stretching into the distance. “We can’t control that.”

And then it’s time for our very own round-table. We sit down in our blindfolds while Claudia does her laps for picking the Traitors and afterwards we each proclaim solemnly that we are a Faithful. “The time for talking is over,” she declares, trying to look serious but clearly stifling a giggle. “Just point at someone you believe is a Traitor.” Hang on a second – point? Where are our little blackboards? (It turns out we’re playing the ever-so-quick press version.)

The nine of us point at someone we think might be a bit dodgy and, to my surprise, one man points at me. But luckily far more are directed at another player who stands up and says: “I think you’re all terrible judges of character but in this instance you are right, I am a Traitor.” So not terrible judges of character at all! We’ve literally stuck gold, very randomly, on our first go. Buoyed by our own brilliance, we set about finding another one. And this is where it all starts to go a bit wrong for me.

The quiet bloke who pointed at me before has decided he really doesn’t want to be quiet any more. “You didn’t deny it when I pointed at you,” he says. “Er, I’ve already said I’m a Faithful,” I counter, telling him to try his luck and he’ll find out that I’m being truthful. What’s rattled his cage?

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“God, I’m turning into that guy who just accuses everyone,” he says, having the grace to look a bit ashamed. Well, yes mate, you are. But he’s not giving up yet. “I’m sticking with you,” he tells me, looking a bit desperate. Doing the only thing that is possible in the situation, I point right back at him.

And then – ha ha ha – it backfires and he’s picked as the Traitor. I mean, OK, he turned out to be a Faithful. But it serves him right for being so – noisy. And I was Faithful too.

Afterwards Claudia tells us that players sometimes SHOVE their shoulders at her as she walks around the table, so desperate are they to be chosen as Traitors. And asked how she developed her distinctive shuffle-walk around the table, she laughed: “Have you seen dressage?” So here’s the million dollar question for the presenter – is the celebrity version as good as the regular one – and what would she give it out of ten? “I’m not saying anything,” she insists. “But…12.”

– The Celebrity Traitors, BBC1, tonight and Thursday, 9pm

Stacey Solomon’s robot vacuum cleaner is her favourite way to ‘work smarter and not harder’ when it comes to cleaning, and it’s now slashed by £86 in Amazon Prime Day deal

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We can all agree that cleaning is usually at the bottom of our list of things we want to do every day, especially if you have kids or pets that seem to make a never ending mess. And despite Stacey Solomon’s love of homemaking, organising and tidying, even she isn’t immune to the stresses of daily tidying.

To help make her life easier, Stacey revealed that she has a Kärcher RCV 3 Robot Vacuum Cleaner that she sends round her house regularly to keep on top of the vacuuming whilst freeing up her time to do other things. Sharing the vacuum cleaner on her Instagram stories last night, Stacey joked with her sister Jemma that she was “Working smarter not harder”, before adding that she’d spotted the vacuum cleaner in an Amazon Prime Day deal.

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Sharing a link to the hoover, Stacey wrote: “My new best friend. She’s the best household item that I’ve ever purchased, and Jemma found her with £99 off in Prime Day today – I’m getting another one.”

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Unfortunately due to Amazon Prime Day’s ever-changing deals, the price of Stacey’s Kärcher RCV 3 Robot Vacuum Cleaner has changed again. Usually priced at £349.99 according to the Kärcher website, you can currently snap it up for £264.35 in the Amazon Prime Day sale, saving you almost £86.

The same vacuum is also slashed to £299.99 on the Kärcher website, so if you don’t have a Prime account or have missed the Amazon offer, you can still save yourself some money on it. The robot vacuum not only picks up all the dust, dirt, crumbs and debris on your floors, but has a wiping function which picks up stray bits of dust and gives your hard floors an extra clean.

You can use the Kärcher RCV 3 Robot Vacuum Cleaner with the Kärcher app, which lets you control when and where your vacuum goes, as well as allowing you to set a cleaning schedule and set cleaning parameters such as suction marks or defining prohibition zones. It uses a LiDAR laser which maps out each of your rooms to make sure it doesn’t miss a single nook or cranny, and can store multiple floor maps at once. It even has fall sensors so you don’t need to worry about it dropping down the stairs.

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Stacey’s Kärcher vacuum isn’t the only one on offer right now, though. You can save £80 on the Roborock Q7 M5 Robot Vacuum which has been slashed from £239.99 to £159.99 in the Amazon Prime Day sales.

Meanwhile Shark has slashed the price of its PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro Robot Vacuum and Mop which is self-emptying, self-refilling and self-cleaning from £799.99 to £549.99, saving you £250. But if you want to follow in Stacey’s footsteps, the Kärcher RCV 3 Robot Vacuum Cleaner is still on sale in the Prime Day deals now.

Country music icon Dolly Parton is not in dire medical straights after concerns were raised when her sister asked for fans to pray for her welfare.

Younger sister Freida sent fans into a tailspin by declaring that she was “up all night praying” for Dolly, who just cancelled her winter Caesars’ Palace shows.

However, has now Dolly fired back at concerns with an update on why she is currently taking time off work.

The 79-year-old icon has been battling severe kidney stones and needs time to recover.

Her English manager Olly Rowland confirmed that the worries were overblown, adding: “It’s just the kidney stones, and the procedure she needs to resolve those.

“It looks like her sister posted, and it got quite a bit blown out of proportion, weirdly.”

Freida, one of Dolly’s five sisters among her 11 siblings, triggered worries after her Facebook post where she stated: “Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly. Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately. I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been led to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me.”

After Rowland’s comments, Freida went back on Facebook to diffuse the online outburst of love.

“I didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious,” Freida added “She’s been a little under the weather and I simply asked for prayers because I believe so strongly in the power of prayer. It was nothing more than a little sister asking for prayers for her big sister. Thank you all for lifting her up. Your love truly makes a difference.”

It comes after Dolly said God was ‘telling her to slow down’ after her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, died aged 82 in March this year.

Announcing the postponement of what would have been her first Vegas residency in more than 30 years, Jolene singer Dolly wrote on Instagram on September 29: “As many of you know, I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures.

“As I joked with them, it must be time for my 100,000-mile check-up, although it’s not the usual trip to see my plastic surgeon.

“In all seriousness, given this, I am not going to be able to rehearse and put together the show that I want you to see. You pay good money to see me perform, and I want to be at my best for you.

“Don’t worry about me quittin’ the business because God hasn’t said anything about stopping yet. But I believe he is telling me to slow down right now so I can be ready for more big adventures with all of you.”

A BBC radio legend has admitted to having an affair with a sex worker while he was married, saying he found himself ‘getting in too deep’

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A BBC legend has opened up on an affair he had behind his wife’s back with a sex worker. Radio star ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton has candidly discussed his cheating ways with a sex worker while shockingly stating that “having children spoils a marriage”.

The 87-year-old broadcaster left no stone unturned as he shared his dramatic life story. He became a major player on BBC radio after joining the organisation in the 1970s.

But he admits that away rom the microphone, all wasn’t as it seemed. Diddy first tied the knot to Sheila Moore in 1962. He was aged 24 at the time and the duo went on to have two children together, Jane and David Jr. However, their romance didn’t last and the couple split in 1970.

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Now, speaking to Best magazine, he confessed all about his love affair that ended their marriage: “I was happily married. Until I fell in love with someone else,” he said.

He explained how he would meet the woman at Liverpool Street station. “I just looked at her and thought, ‘wow’. I think if anything spoils a marriage, it’s children. Suddenly, the man is taking a back seat.

“Then he meets someone young free and single and thinks, ‘Crikey, I could go back to that happy state I was in before.'”

Diddy revealed his wife discovered his affair due to the amount of time he spoke of the woman. He added he was “head over heels” and decided to up sticks and start again with the lady. In the end, they stayed together for four years.

He spoke about his relationship with an escort, saying: “She asked if I would open her new shop, and how much I’d charge. I said ‘£500’. She told me she charged £100 for her services, so ‘If you give me five I’ll give you one.'”

The radio star thought it would only be a one-time thing but confessed the pair soon became fond of each other. He admitted he found himself “getting in too deep”.

Now, however, Diddy is married to his second wife, aerobics teacher Dreena. They have been married since 1993 and he claims her friends had warned her of his womanising ways.

But, he appears to have proven them wrong as he proudly states that have been together for 40 years and married for 30 of them. And he joked it works as his wife “doesn’t take any c**p from me”.

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Diddy recently revealed he’d be up for selling his private car registration plate due to it being “sullied” by rapper Sean Combs who has the same nickname. Combs was jailed for just over four years last week after he was found guilty on two counts of transportation for prostitution.

Speaking to The Times the radio presenter said: “I once spent £5,000 on a “D1DDY” personalised number plate for a Mini Cooper I had, but it’s not on a car at the moment. I would sell it, but it’s not a good time because I keep reading about that Diddy guy in America who is up in front of the beak — he has sullied my name.”

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Approximately 10% of the population has dyslexia, so to mark Dyslexia Awareness Week, we’ve highlighted five big names you may not have realised are affected by the condition

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Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that impacts reading, writing, and spelling capabilities due to differences in how the brain processes language. The British Dyslexia Association estimates that roughly 10% of the population are thought to live with the condition.

To mark Dyslexia Awareness Week this week (October 6-12), we’ve put together a list of five celebrity figures who have battled with dyslexia that you might not have realised. A recent Reddit thread saw those affected discuss how “having dyslexia isn’t the end”, and actually it has “changed the course of human history.”

“So I hated my dyslexia, bit over the years I learned about my dyslexia and the benefits of having it, and wow – there are a lot of benefits,” one Reddit user shared. “[I] then looked into famous dyslexics and some of the blew my mind and made me think the world would be a completely different place if they had never existed.” Some of those can be found below.

Noel Gallagher

Seldom absent from headlines since reuniting with his younger brother Liam last year, Oasis star Noel Gallagher has frequently discussed his dyslexia diagnosis throughout the years. It obviously hasn’t hampered his songwriting talents, having crafted countless chart-topping albums and tracks since achieving stardom in the mid-1990s.

In an interview with Q Magazine during Oasis’ peak in 1996, Noel admitted: “Sometimes I give lyrics to Liam and the two key words of the sentence will be missing. When I gave him Don’t Look Back In Anger, he was singing, ‘But don’t back in anger, not today’.

“I’m saying, ‘It’s ‘Don’t look back in anger’, but he said, ‘That’s not what’s f***ing written ‘ere, chief’.”

Jennifer Aniston

In 2015, Friends actress Jennifer Aniston disclosed she had struggled with dyslexia for twenty years before receiving a diagnosis. Discussing her challenges with the Hollywood Reporter, Jen revealed: “I had to wear these Buddy Holly glasses. One had a blue lens and one had a red lens.

“And I had to read a paragraph, and they gave me a quiz, gave me 10 questions based on what I’d just read, and I think I got three right. Then they put a computer on my eyes, showing where my eyes went when I read.

“My eyes would jump four words and go back two words, and I also had a little bit of a lazy eye, like a crossed eye, which they always have to correct in photos.”

Tom Cruise

Hollywood legend Tom Cruise is arguably most famous for playing LT Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in 1986’s Top Gun, and has previously disclosed that dyslexia prevented him from passing his pilot’s exams while filming the movie. His interest in Scientology piqued around this time, leading him to explore ways to overcome his condition.

He shared with Talk About Dyslexia: “When I was about seven years old, I had been labelled dyslexic, I’d try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I’d get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I’d read.”

Cruise then became involved with Study Technology, a method that tackles key obstacles to traditional learning. “Many people had tried to teach me, but no one had taught me how to learn or how to study,” he later revealed to People.

“I had been told I had all the symptoms of dyslexia, but no one had given me a solution. I realised I could absolutely learn anything that I wanted to learn.”

Richard Branson

Richard Branson didn’t let dyslexia hinder his journey to becoming a business tycoon and billionaire. However, the co-founder of Virgin Group has always been candid about his condition.

In 2015, he participated in a social media campaign called ‘#likeadyslexic’, where he discussed his experience with dyslexia. “If anyone ever puts you down for having dyslexia, don’t believe them,” he advised nine-year old Honor Smith, a fellow dyslexic who wrote to him after watching one of his videos.

“Being dyslexic can actually be a big advantage, and it has certainly helped me,” he affirmed. “Your life definitely isn’t ruined – I look forward to hearing what great things to achieve in the years to come. I look forward to hearing what great things you’ve achieved in life.”

Cher

Cher shot to stardom in the 1960s as a teenager largely through her success as one half of chart-topping duo, Sonny and Cher. However, she wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until she reached her 30s.

Reflecting on her school days, she shared with David Morgan Education about her time in high school: “In the second week of the 11th grade, I just quit. When I was in school, it was really difficult. Almost everything I learned, I had to learn by listening. My report cards always said that I was not living up to my potential.”