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Mel B is set to tie the knot to the ‘love of her life’ in a luxurious London ceremony attended by her nearest and dearest including her celebrity pals later on today

Mel B has showed off her unique wedding preparations ahead of marrying the “love of her life” this weekend. The singer took to her Instagram to give a sneak peek to her followers where she showed one activity she’s doing to get ready for her special day.

The former Spice Girls star shared a photo of herself sat on the ground doing what looked to be a sound bath. She wore brightly coloured pyjamas and a gold sequin hat. She also had a stunning Tunisian beach backdrop behind her. Meanwhile, Mel captioned the post: “cant wait to marry the luv of my life,” along with two pink love heart emojis.

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Friends and fans of the star took to the comment section to share their well wishes. One wrote: “Yay Absolutely fantastic to see you happy and about to start your lifetime together. Happy for you. “

As a second said: “Mel B, you never needed a glow up, but I still think one is happening to you right now! Love this beautiful energy. ” While a third added: “no one deserves happiness more than you. And thank you, @rorymcphee for loving her the way she deserves. “

Mel is due to get married today along with her nearest and dearest in attendance. She is set to tie the knot with her fiancé Rory McPhee.

They will say their vows at St Paul’s Cathedral after being engaged for three years. Mel and Rory, 37, have known each other for years and first met when he was working as her hair stylist.

He’s co-founded salons such as Rory James, which is located in Horsforth, close to Mel’s own home city of Leeds. Rory is listed as an artist for Lee Stafford, with him credited as training others in the industry and acting as an ambassador in the educational role.

Mel’s fiancé is also said to be an artist for the brand Redken, which is part of the L’Oréal Group. His celebrity clients have included actor Christian Cooke, who is Mel’s cousin.

The two decided to give things a go romantically in 2018 and Rory popped the question in 2022. It has been rumoured that the pair are going all out for their wedding.

They are due to enjoy a meal, drinks and dancing after their nuptials at the luxury Shangri-La at The Shard in London. An insider said the wedding will be “huge” and the “most memorable event” but two of the Spice Girls are “too busy” to attend.

Posting a photograph of her and Melanie together at a recent event, Victoria Beckham sent her well-wishes as she won’t be at the event. In the caption she gushed: “Sending love to you @officialmelb! @rorymcphee is a very lucky man! xx”

Geri Halliwell will also not be going as she is supporting her husband Christian Horner at the British Grand Prix, which is being held at Silverstone Circuit between July 4 and July 6.

Devoted wife Sharon Osbourne says the Black Sabbath frontman has even been getting expert coaching so he can give fans his best ever performance when he takes to the stage at Aston Villa tonight

Black Sabbath’s final ever performance will draw more than 45,000 heavy metal fans from around the world to Villa Park to hear frontman Ozzy Osbourne in “perfect” voice tonight.

He may be 76 and suffering from Parkinson’s, but his Back to the Beginning celebration will make history for all the right reasons, insists wife Sharon.

“We are doing it to say goodbye as he feels like ‘I have never said goodbye to my fans. I want to say goodbye properly,’” she tells The Mirror, disclosing that he’s been having singing lessons.

“There won’t be any head banging. Not anymore, but his voice is still absolutely perfect. ”

Still devoted to the star, who she married 43 years ago this week, Sharon, 72. adds: “Even if you don’t like his music you can’t not like Ozzy – he just draws you in. “

Her husband’s manager since 1979, Sharon met Ozzy – who will continue recording, although he won’t perform again live – in 1970 when he walked into the music management offices of her father, the late impresario Don Arden.

Just 18 then and manning the telephone switchboard for Don, who looked after American greats Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, Sharon, 72, remembers their meeting as if it was yesterday.

“When I first met Ozzy he was in pyjama tops, open toe sandals and a tap around his neck as jewellery,” she laughs. “We have been together for over 50 years. I have stuck by him because I love him. It is simple. I understand him and why he does the things he does.

“I have always felt I could not do it without his talent and I always feel I am on his coat tails. So it takes two. The combination has worked and still does.

“I know him so well. It takes years and years to know someone, so I know him inside out, backwards and the same he does with me. “

Despite his hellraising image, Sharon says Ozzy was hopeless as a young star when it came to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

A former petty thief, from working class roots in Aston, Birmingham, aged 17, Ozzy was jailed for two months after breaking into a clothes shop and stealing women’s stockings.

Music saved him from crime, but Sharon recalls: “Ozzy got fired from Black Sabbath for doing drugs. They were all doing them, but he could not handle them. He would be on the floor peeing himself and the others would still be having a great time. He could never handle it.

“Once they were in a city, let’s say Detroit, they were in this hotel and they were all very tired. The tour manager gave them the keys to the room and Ozzy goes to the room and wakes up at 6pm and he is like ‘Oh the gig, I have got to get there,’ but he did not know where it was and he could not get through to anybody.

“He had slept the entire day through and they could not find him. He had gone into somebody else’s room. The door was open and he went in. “

Caring for Ozzy, who also sustained terrible injuries, including a broken neck vertebra, broken collarbone and six broken ribs in a 2003 quad bike accident at his Buckinghamshire property, is now a full-time job for Sharon.

She says: “It is very hard for him since he had his accident. He has had seven operations in five years and major operations.

“When he had his first operation they had him on like 64 pills a day, different things he needed. I remember I went in there one day and he said ‘Hi darling. How are you? You have just missed Elvis Presley.’ I was like ‘really?’ and he said ‘yeah, we had a great talk. He is doing great. We had this whole conversation’.

“It was because he was on so many different painkillers. It was just horrendous and we decided he can never handle his own medication. “

Also supporting him with his health issues are daughters Aimee, 41, Kelly, 40, and son Jack, 39, as well as an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, who has been by his side since the star quit booze more than 11 years ago.

Sharon says: “Ozzy has still got his sponsor Billy and my son is sober. We have never had alcohol in the house. My son has been clean and sober 20 years now. “

Ozzy’s crazy days of binge drink and drug taking, which famously threatened his marriage to Sharon in September 1989 when he one night attempted to strangle her, are now a distant memory.

Recalling the attack, Sharon says: “I remember everything about that. It is like tattooed in my brain. He was on a roll with the drugs and the booze and all week he had been a bit violent, fiery. I always knew. The pestle and mortar in the kitchen, he was using it in the kitchen to grind up pills, all different types.

“He used to hide his drink in the oven as he knew I would never find it. I knew that day it was building. That night he was upstairs and I was downstairs and suddenly he came down with just his undies on.

“He goes ‘We have got something to tell you? ’ I was like ‘we? ’ and he said ‘we have decided. I am going to have to kill you’. I was like ‘alrighty then’ and it was like whoosh. He got me on the ground and was strangling me.

“On the coffee table we had an alarm and it went straight to the cops and it would ring really loud. I had it extra loud, as we were living in the country and often I was on my own, as there was nobody around. So I pressed the alarm and within two minutes the cops came.

“I blacked out. All I kept thinking about was the kids. They handcuffed him and it is the usual alcoholic thing ‘she is this… and that’. When they took him away I had this weight lifted off me.

“He got himself a lawyer and he said he would go into rehab for six months and the judge said he had to stay there for six months. It terrified me and the kids. “

Despite the attack, Sharon helped Ozzy battle his demons, saying: “I had nothing in my name, so if I wanted a divorce I would have nothing.

“He then started to write long letters and I missed him. No matter what, I loved him, so what am I gonna do? When he came back he had been six months without booze or drugs, so he was very quiet and sheepish. “

As well as the attack, Ozzy has, reportedly, had multiple affairs over the years with various women, including a Russian teenager, and an English masseuse and cook who worked for the family. But the couple have always reconciled.

And Sharon says Ozzy missed her life mad when work took her away from their LA base for stints on shows like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. “He hates living on his own,” she says.

Explaining his dalliances, she adds: “When he is on tour he is in a hotel room on his own. And you don’t have to go out looking when you are a rock star, it (temptation) is everywhere. “

Glad that she made X Factor, judging alongside Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh, Sharon says our “be kind era” means it would be impossible to make it today, as it would be dubbed cruel.

She agrees with current thinking that you should protect vulnerable stars, but adds: “When somebody comes in dressed as a jockey and says they are going to sing Madonna, well that is different. “

She is glad she and Ozzy pulled the plug on their own MTV series, The Osbournes, back in 2005, saying the rise of the reality TV genre was damaging their children.

“We stopped doing it because of the kids. They were earning too much money and they got too much attention and they were living a life which was basic bullshit,” says Sharon.

“It was parties here and parties there. They were flown all around the world. They were too young and it was bullshit. They went from a school in Buckinghamshire in their uniforms to Los Angeles and they could get into any club they wanted. They were too young, but they would let them in because of who they were. Fame and money is very hard to handle. “

The Osbournes was pivotal to other celebrities wanting to make their own ‘at home with’ series.

But Sharon insists she doesn’t envy the Kardashians, who reportedly made $100 million per season for their series, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which ended in 2021.

She says of their show: “You can t say it is about a normal family, as it is all about fashion and sex. I have never watched a full episode. ”

Glad to have had such a colourful life, Sharon is also very aware of how precious her time with Ozzy now is.

She says: “Time is the most precious thing we have. You can’t buy time. The days drip by, but the years fly by and suddenly you wake up and you are old. But I like getting old, as I feel I have got wisdom. “

And has she ever had eyes for anyone other than the Black Sabbath legend? “I would say George Michael if he was straight,” she laughs. “I mean, everyone loved George. “

• Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes, released on July 25, contains tracks by Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward recorded at Zella Studios in Birmingham in 1969.

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The summer holidays have officially started for Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – and royal expert Jennie Bond has revealed what the Prince and Princess of Wales might have in store for them during their break

With the summer in full swing, the royals can finally look forward to their annual break. And the holidays have started even sooner for the children of the Prince and Princess of Wales, who have officially come to the end of another school year.

Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 10, and seven-year-old Prince Louis are now on their summer break from Lambrook School before heading back to class in September. Their parents William and Kate will likely have some fun plans in store for their children – but before that, they both have a huge royal duty to carry out.

Next week will see them officially welcome French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to the UK and take part in their glittering state visit. But once that huge duty is over, they can start to look towards their holidays – and royal expert Jennie Bond believes the break will be very different to the ones William used to enjoy when he was younger.

The former BBC royal correspondent told the Mirror: “The truth is that school holidays are ringfenced as private time for the Prince and Princess of Wales and their young family. And, these days, that means that their plans remain confidential and they are pretty much left alone.

“It’s a massive change from the days when William was a boy. Back then, the paparazzi regarded Diana, William and Harry as public property, no matter where they were. Thankfully, after the death of the Princess, things changed. And that must be a huge relief to the Waleses.

“That’s not to say William will disappear from public duties – there’s the incoming State Visit from President Macron, for example, and I’m sure there will be a handful of other engagements which he will take on. Catherine will devote herself largely to looking after the children, but we may see her at events like Wimbledon and the State Visit. “

It’s likely the Wales family will be keen to get away from their Windsor home, Adelaide Cottage and decamp to Norfolk, where they can immerse themselves in nature.

Just this week Kate, who spoke about her ‘rollercoaster’ recovery from cancer treatment and its life-changing impact, visited a wellbeing garden at a hospital to highlight the environment’s healing powers.

And Jennie believes the whole family loves the great outdoors. She explained: “The family is likely to be based at their Norfolk home, Anmer Hall, for most of the long summer break. They love the wide open spaces there, the freedom they have to explore the Sandringham estate and also to play, pretty unhindered, on the beaches.

“The Sandringham farm offers an opportunity for all sorts of fun for the children: tractors to watch, animals to feed and fruit to pick. The family is also very fond of the Scilly Isles and I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent a week or two there. “

But while any location for a holiday would remain private, Jennie says there is definitely one destination they will be paying a visit to this summer – Balmoral.

Each year, the royals head up to the Scottish Highlands estate to enjoy quality family time together with the King and Queen, enjoying picnics, barbecues and long walks.

And Jennie added: “They will almost certainly head north of the border for a week sometime in August when the King and Queen will be in residence at Balmoral.

“It’s a long-standing tradition that the family gather in Scotland to catch their breath, enjoy the peace of the countryside and just have fun being together.”

Celebs Go Dating coach Anna Williamson spoke to the Mirror about parenting amid concerns over technology and social media after hosting the Great British Phone Switch

Anna Williamson has opened up her approach to parenting, including revealing some of the rules that are in place within her home. The Celebs Go Dating coach offered advice to other parents whilst discussing her own experience.

The life coach and presenter, 43, has two children with her husband Alex Di Pasquale, 36. The couple, who have now been together for more than a decade, are parents to an eight-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter together.

Anna spoke to the Mirror about her family earlier this week whilst reflecting on the Great British Phone Swap. The Channel 4 show, in partnership with Tesco Mobile, sees parents swap phone habits with their children for 48 hours.

Fronted by Anna and clinical psychologist Dr Martha Deiros Collado, the experiment explores topics including online safety and the use of AI. Each parent and child duo left the experience with a set of goals for their family, such as scheduled time away from devices and weekly check-ins.

Asked her main takeaway, Anna said it was “boundaries” and having “healthy, open communication”. “Boundaries being time when you are not on your phone and I think we found that was really beneficial for all families,” she added.

The show also saw parents introduced to their kids’ lives on platforms like TikTok. Anna said: “When [they] lent into the teenager’s worlds, they were actually less fearful about what was happening because they understood it better.”

Although her own kids aren’t on social media, Anna revealed that her eldest child is now starting to ask when he will be allowed a phone. She shared that even though he doesn’t have one yet, she’s already using parental control on games and apps that he’s interested in on another device.

Concerns over screen time were raised on the Great British Phone Swap and Anna teased that she can relate to the other parents. Asked what the dynamic is like in her family, she told us: “We’re always fighting against screen time in my house but very much we try and lead from example. “

Anna said it’s “very difficult” as a parent because “a lot of our work nowadays is online”. She said that can be tough to convey to kids, who may interpret their parents being on devices as them playing a game or browsing social media.

Although that may sometimes be the case, Anna encourages leading by example. She said in our interview: “The approach of ‘just do it because I said,’ it doesn’t really wash because you’re typically gonna get a child that will rebel. They won’t trust you, they won’t lean in to you, they won’t talk to you and they will just do it anyway. “

Anna said that she tries to make sure that her own devices are away as much as possible between the time that she picks her kids up from school and their bedtime. She then explained: “I might jump on later on and reply to emails and do a lot of my messaging after that. “

She said that as a result when she’s trying to get her kids off their devices they know that she’s “boundaried” with her own. Anna revealed that her kids get an hour of screen time each per day, which they can use when they want.

Anna said their allowance could be used before or after school, through “approved apps” or “things they wanna watch”. She said that her son may choose to use his hour altogether on completing a video game level, for example, rather than taking it in scattered periods over the day.

“It’s teaching your children that they do have a choice but they have a choice within your boundaries,” Anna said. Summarising her approach, she added: “So we try and keep reduced screen time. We do have parental controls. I do keep a very close eye on what my children are watching. “

Anna went on to discuss one participant in the show having suggested that their generation spent time outside, rather than playing on devices, as children. The podcast host however said that it’s the “reality” of the world we live in now.

She said: “I do think that we have to accept where we are. We always evolve, we have to evolve. [… ] I think as we portray in the Great British Phone Switch phones aren’t a bad thing. Tech isn’t a bad thing. But it’s about consuming the right things on it and that’s the important thing here. “

Anna, who said that parents are “always grappling” with issues like screen time and whether to let their children have a phone, told us that she doesn’t support banning technology at home. She said: “What I always say is that banning it completely I don’t believe is a particularly useful or helpful idea in the long run.”

She explained: “Because what you ban, you’re not teaching someone to use it sensibly. The analogy being; you wouldn’t just stick a 17 year old out in a car without giving them driving lessons to teach them how to drive it safely. “

Anna suggested that the same benefits apply to technology. She said: “It’s exactly the same with tech – you need to teach your children how to navigate it. Where the pitfalls are, where the hazards are, where the safe spaces are. “

She added that banning it completely doesn’t give kids the “skills” and the “tools” that they need in the modern world. Anna however suggested that it doesn’t mean children should have no restrictions when it comes to using devices.

“The heavy caveat is to not be consumed by it and to make sure there are other things going on in your life that are face-to-face,” she said. “Making sure that those interpersonal skills are just as acute as their digital skills. “

Anna also shared that she isn’t letting her kids on social media at the moment and opened up about no longer showing their faces on her own Instagram. She recalled making the decision a few years ago when she “became increasingly aware around consent”. She said that although her job in the public eye is a choice that she has made, the same can’t be said for her kids.

“I didn’t want my children to be in a position where they thought I’d made the wrong decision for them,” she said. Anna went on to say: “I’m not shading anyone that does choose to share their children or their families online. I think everyone makes the right choice for them and their family. “

All five episodes of the Great British Phone Swap are available now through Channel 4.

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