Category Entertainment News

Love Island couple Whitney Adebayo ‘ and Lochan Nowacki’s relationship has been questioned in recent week, but the reality TV stars took to social media to address their pairing

After weeks of speculation, a Love Island star has ended rumours of a relationship split. Whitney Adebayo and Lochan Nowacki’s pairing had been question earlier this month after fans thought they had spotted clues there was trouble in paradise.

The couple met and fell head over heels for each other on the ITV2 programme in 2023 and have gone from strength to strength since leaving the villa as runners-up. However, after regularly appearing on each other’s social media, fans recently noticed how Lochan was nowhere to be seen at the premiere of Whitney’s latest venture called Inside, which has her team up with the Sidemen in a new show.

Despite the speculation, Whitney has now moved to confirm the couple are still an item. She took to Instagram to share a loved-up video of the pair pouting to the camera. Over the top of the video, she shared a voice note in which she revealed: “First the first time in 27 years, I can honestly say I’m in a happy, loving relationship.”

However, she said it hasn’t always been easy and explained how she had to “unlearn toxic traits” in order to ensure she didn’t lose her man. She captioned the upload: “Chapter 3 – Healing Love. Thank you for being you, happy birthday my love @lochan_nowacki”.

And fellow Love Island stars were quick to pay tribute to the pair in the comments section. Millie Court said: “You guyssss,” with a number of crying face emojis.

Chloe Burrows also wrote: “God this is f***ing cute”, while Lochan added: “Nawwwww you I love this and you baby! Getting ya man emotional on his bday! Now get your ass over here so we can celebrate! I appreciate you always”.

Whitney’s latest project, Inside, brought together a diverse group of influencers, reality stars, and online personalities, who will face a variety of challenges in a competition for a £1 million prize.

The series was produced by the popular British YouTubers, the Sidemen, and challenged its contestants to outwit and outlast their competitors in a series of tasks designed to test their teamwork, strategy, and endurance.

The contestants had compete in these tasks while under constant observation, with penalties for mistakes and rewards for success.

Last week, Whitney appeared to have quit social media following racist abuse over the new TV show. Following her appearance on the show, Whitney took to social media to hit back at the vile trolls who had been targeting her online and making horrifying comments.

She said: “I’d like to take the time and address something important after the airing of Inside on Netflix. I was a contestant on the show, where the goal was to win a million pounds while navigating the challenge of saving and spending money. I was a ‘spender’ by nature, which added some fun and drama to the show, but it’s important to remember that everything you saw was a part of the game, designed for entertainment.”

“I’ve received a mix of reactions – some positive, some negative. But what I’ve encountered more than anything is the reality of racism. I understand that being in the spotlight briny criticism, but what I’ve experienced the past few days goes beyond criticism”, she wrote.

“This evil, hatred and pure racism and should not be tolerated. The hateful messages, the death threats, and the unjust treatment I’ve received are not only hurtful, but they also serve as a reminder that racism is still very much embedded in British culture”.

Despite their public split last year Megan Fox and her ex Machine Gun Kelly have vowed to focus their attention of co-parenting following the recent birth of their baby girl

Megan Fox is believed to be in a “good place” according to those close to the actress, following the end of her turbulent relationship with rapper Machine Gun Kelly in December last year. Earlier this week, MGK, announced the birth of his newborn daughter on social media as he posted a black and white video of him gently stroking his daughter’s hand as she clutched his finger.

The post was accompanied by a message that read “She’s finally here!! our little celestial seed”. In the background, fans heard an instrumental song that he had composed with close pal and rocker Travis Barker.

And while MGK, whose real name is Colson Baker, was quick to share the happy news with his fans, Megan is yet to post. According to those close with the Hollywood star, 38, and her ex, the pair are “so happy to be parents together”, despite Megan calling time on their four year relationship.

The source told US Weekly: “No matter how they’ve felt about each other, they have always wanted to have a child together. They have both been communicating and are in a good place”.

Following the birth of her daughter, this has seemingly pushed her painful and public split from MGK to the back of her mind according to pals, as she is finally enjoying being in the bubble of being a new mum.

And this perhaps is the reason as to why Megan remains determined to focus her attention on co-parenting with MGK with ease. Friends close to Megan also revealed to various US publications that she will not attempt to rekindle their romance any time soon.

A source told US Weekly: “MGK would like to reconcile, but Megan is firm in her decision to move on. She does not see a future with him anymore. She doesn’t want to put herself in the same position again with him anymore. She wants to break the cycle”.

Back in 2022, the rapper popped the question during a romantic trip to Puerto Rico. And Megan could not contain her excitement as she told fans at the time: “In July of 2020 we sat under this banyan tree. We asked for magic”.

She added: “We were oblivious to the pain we would face together in such a short, frenetic period of time”. She then added that they had been “intoxicated off of the love” and “laughed more than]she] ever imagined possible”.

But things soon turned sour for the pair as in 2023, she had wiped any memory of MGK from her Instagram account, leaving many to fear that her relationship had come to an end.

But by the end of May that year, they appeared to have reconciled and laid to rest their differences. However, by March the following year, while on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Megan candidly revealed that rumours of her engagement being called off were in fact true.

She admitted: “What I can say is, that is what I refer to as being my ‘ twin soul, ‘ and there will always be a tether to him no matter what.

” I can’t say for sure what the capacity will be, but I will always be connected to him somehow. Beyond that, I’m not willing to explain. “

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This City Is Ours star James Nelson-Joyce has shared how Adolescence star Stephen Graham has influenced his career

James Nelson-Joyce has expressed his admiration for Stephen Graham as he discusses his latest role in the BBC drama This City Is Ours.

The actor, who hails from Orrell Park in Liverpool, plays Michael Kavanagh, a character deeply entrenched in organised crime, alongside his partner Ronnie Phelan, played by Sean Bean.

The narrative delves into the power struggle that ensues when Ronnie’s son Jamie, portrayed by Jack McMullen, decides to take over their criminal empire, leaving Michael out in the cold.

Complications arise when Michael encounters Diana (Hannah Onslow), and together they start to dream of a life free from crime. But their plans are jeopardised when a cocaine shipment from Colombia disappears, exposing vulnerabilities and signalling that their reign is under threat.

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In a chat with the BBC, James paid homage to fellow Liverpudlians who have inspired him, including footballer Jamie Carragher and actor Stephen Graham, reports the Liverpool Echo.

He declared: “It’s the best city in the world, and it is home”, reflecting on his aspirations to captain Liverpool FC like his hero Carragher.

He continued: “And there are actors like Stephen Graham, who is one of those people I look up to in life. He is all about encouragement”.

Both Stephen and James appeared in the 2017 true-crime drama Little Boy Blue, which recounted the heart-wrenching murder of 11 year old Rhys Jones in Liverpool.

James warmly recalled his experiences with his former co-star, saying: “Stephen likes to pass on advice. He is a massive inspiration and I have been fortunate to work with him. He told me once that he’s always just a phone call away”.

He also expressed hope for audience support for his latest work: “I know he’ll watch and support This City is Ours, and I look forward to hearing what he thinks about it. I want viewers to join us from episode one and stay with us. It will be worth the ride”.

On the flip side, Stephen, hailing from Kirkby at 51, has expressed amazement over the success of ‘Adolescence’ on Netflix.

Stephen, an award-winning actor who also teamed up with Jack Thorne to pen the thrilling series, probes the disturbing dilemma: “What would you do if your teenage son was accused of murder”?.

The show has skyrocketed in popularity worldwide, smashing Netflix records by racking up 24.3 million views globally within the initial four days following its release, and later soaring to an astonishing 66.3 million views after two weeks.

The musician’s world was upended in 1991 when his young son Conor, aged just four at the time, fell 53 floors to his death from a New York apartment. Eric would go on to write the song Tears in Heaven in tribute to his little boy

Eric Clapton is regarded as one of the most acclaimed musicians in rock and roll – but his incredible life has been marred by great tragedy.

On March 20, 1991, his four-year-old son Conor tragically died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of a New York City apartment. And just 24 hours before the shocking incident, Eric had made a poignant promise to his ex-girlfriend Lory del Santo – Conor’s mother.

Italian actress Lory had custody of Conor following the couple’s split. Eric arrived at the high-rise apartment to take out his young son for the day – it would be the first time he had ever taken Conor out by himself, and he had bought tickets for the circus at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island.

According to biographer Philip Norman, “That sawdust-scented afternoon showed him what he’d been missing. When they returned to the apartment, with Conor chattering excitedly about the clowns and elephants, Eric told Lory that, from now on, he intended to be a proper father”.

Tragically, he didn’t get the chance. The next day, Eric and his son planned to visit the Bronx Zoo, followed by lunch at an Italian restaurant.

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“In the morning, as mother and son waited for Clapton to pick Conor up from the apartment, a janitor arrived to clean the windows. Lory was in the bathroom and the boy was in the care of a nanny – but careering around in a state of high excitement, impatient to see his ‘ Papa ‘ again.

” The janitor had been working on the cantilevered windows in the living room, one of which still hung open. He called out to the nanny to watch the child, but before she could react, Conor dashed past her, jumped up onto the low window-ledge where he’d normally press his nose against the glass to gaze out – and disappeared. “

Eric and Lory had briefly been engaged, but by 1991, they had ended their romance and she had struck up a romance with Italian film producer Silvio Sardi, owner of the apartment in the Galleria building in New York.

From there, Lory had to call Eric to tell him the devastating news. In a state of shock, the musician could only ask, ‘ Are you sure? ‘ He then walked the seven blocks to the Galleria, hoping there must have been some mistake.

Eric later told PEOPLE:” I remember putting the phone down and calmly walking from my hotel to that place as if nothing happened. And I walked past the street and, this is a terrible thing of shame for me, which I’ll never, ever perhaps recover from and seeing that, seeing a crowd of people and a paramedic van and knowing that he was there]trying to be resuscitated] and walking by, I’ll punish myself forever about why didn’t I run? Why didn’t I go to see him? … the truth is I couldn’t. I was so frightened. “

Conor was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalen in Ripley, Surrey, a few hundred yards from Eric’s own birthplace. The funeral took place on March 28, two days before Eric’s 46th birthday, with mourners including George Harrison, Phil Collins and many other faces from the world of music.

In unthinkable pain and grief, Eric retreated from the limelight and his career in music to piece together how to move forwards. He turned his grief into the heart-wrenching ballad Tears in Heaven, which was released in January 1992. It remains Eric’s best-selling single in the United States.

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Twelve years after her last novel, best-selling author and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is making a highly anticipated return with “Dream Count”.

The story recounts the intertwined fates of four women from Nigeria who emigrate to the United States and then find out their lives do not work out as planned.

At its heart is Chiamaka, a writer who defies tradition and refuses the marriage upon which her affluent family back in Nigeria had placed so much hope.

Zikora, Chiamaka’s friend, fulfils her dream of having a child. But the father does not marry her and bails out.

Chiamaka’s cousin has a successful business career but then gives it all up to go back to university.

And there is Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housemaid and confidante, whose American dream is shattered when she is sexually assaulted by a guest at a luxury hotel.

“I’m interested in how much of a woman’s dream is really hers, and how much is what society has told her to dream about”, Adichie told AFP in Paris at the launch of the French edition of her book on March 27.

“I think that the world is still deeply oppressive to women. Women are judged more harshly for being selfish, for having ambition and for being unapologetic”.

The four women initially think they know what they want from life and love, but doubts creep in when they start to fear they have missed opportunities and struggle with social pressures and racism.

Yet they continue to support each other.

“Women are socialised to think of each other as competition. And so when a woman makes the choice to really love and support another woman, it’s an act of revolution. It’s an act of pushing back at a patriarchal society”, Adichie explained.

Not ‘ a place to be pitied ‘

Adichie’s 2012 TED talk, “We Should All Be Feminists”, propelled her into the mainstream.

It&nbsp, received millions of hits on YouTube and was sampled by Beyonce in the singer’s hit “Flawless”.

But she does not like her writing being pigeonholed.

“I don’t think of myself as a ‘ feminist ‘ writer”, she insisted. “I think of myself as a writer. And I’m also a feminist”.

“The problem with labels is that it can be very limiting”, she continued. “We would then look at stories through only ideological lenses”.

Instead Adichie thinks novels need to be messy and sometimes contradict opinions and beliefs.

“We’re all full of contradictions”, she smiled mischievously.

Another of her bugbears is the patronising Western stereotype of Africa, the “single story” of a continent plagued by poverty, conflicts, and diseases.

“There’s still the tendency to look at Africa as a place to be pitied”, she said.

“And I think it’s very troubling because you cannot understand a place like Nigeria, for example, if you look at it only as a place to be pitied”.

Nigeria is a major oil producer, has a thriving business culture, global pop stars and Nollywood — Africa’s answer to Hollywood.

A way out of grief

Not that everything is all rosy. Young Nigerians are leaving en masse, fleeing inflation and unemployment in search of a better future abroad.

That, in Adichie’s view, is the fault of the present government, which “is not at all in any way focused on ordinary people’s lives”.

“I want to sit in judgment of the government, not in judgment of those who have dreams”, she said.

Now 47, Adichie has seen her works translated into more than 50 languages and won a string of prestigious literary awards -– including the Orange Prize for “Half of a Yellow Sun” (2006) and the National Book Critics Circle Award for “Americanah” (2013).

But when she was pregnant with her first child, a daughter born in 2016, she was seized by crippling writer’s block — every wordsmith’s nightmare.

It was the loss of her mother in 2021, only months after the death of her father, that broke the stalemate.

Out of her sorrow came “Dream Count”.

“Only when I was almost done did I realise: ‘ My God, it’s about my mother! ‘” she said in an interview with Britain’s Guardian newspaper in February.

“I think my mother helped me”, she told AFP. “I think she said: ‘ You know, I need to get my daughter writing again so that she doesn’t go completely mad from grief. ‘”

She said this book is “very different from anything else I’ve done”.

“This is the first novel that I’ve written as a mother. And this is the first I’ve written as an orphan”, Adichie explained.

Aston Merrygold, Marvin Humes, Oritsé Williams and JB Gill hit the road later this year – and have shared what they’ve got planned for the shows

JLS have let us in on the secrets of their upcoming tour – and it’s sounding epic. The foursome promise to flash the flesh, bring on some huge surprise guests and make their The Club is Alive: 2025 Hits Tour one huge party.

And while they admit the “club” will not go on until 6am like it used to in the old days, the tequila and rosé will still be flowing… as will the ginger shots and manuka honey. Aston Merrygold tells us: “We’ve had our fair share of partying. We enjoy a drink, it’s just different now. We don’t want to be out until 6am. Let’s sit on the bus, have a nice drink, play some poker.”

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In November, JLS – Aston, Marvin Humes, Oritsé Williams and JB Gill – are due to set out on their eighth arena tour, playing 16 UK dates. Aston says: “The crowd are going to know every one of our songs – it’s going to be electric.”

Telling us some of their plans for the live shows, it’s clear one thing has not changed, as Aston mentions: “There’s never very many clothes in a JLS show”. Marvin chips in: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show when Aston finishes with a top on. Why should that stop? Give the crowd what they want”!

But the band say they are more cautious now when it comes to throwing souvenirs into the crowd. During the last tour JB threw a shoe… which hit a fan in the face. He explains: “The launch was just wrong”. But Marvin insists: “We’ve learned a lot from that situation”.

Another situation they have learned from involved Marv facing one of his biggest fears – and going badly wrong. He recalls: “We did a performance on wires. It went into emergency mode, as in if it broke, it shot you to the top of the arena. That happened to me in Newcastle, and I don’t like heights. I wasn’t enjoying it.

” These guys were just looking up at me, carrying on performing. I was up there, waving my lightsaber about. I managed to get back on for the next tour. No more wires. “

The lads ‘ only fear on tour, it seems, is… white towels. Aston explains:” At one show, someone put brand new white towels on the stage. Dabbing yourself down and then you’re covered in white fluff… it’s not a good look. That’s our only no-no. “

Fans will get to enjoy the extensive JLS back-catalogue, including hits Beat Again, Everybody in Love and The Club is Alive. Says JB:” The club is definitely going to be alive. “

And Oritsé promises:” It’s going to be an epic tour. If it wasn’t for the fans, we wouldn’t be here. This is our thank you to them. It’s going to feel brand new. “

Marvin teases: “There’s always surprise guests at a JLS show. Between the four of us, we’ve got a lot of friends.” And one of those friends will be Example, who is set to support the band on their tour, which kicks off in Glasgow on November 6 and finishes 23 days later at London’s O2 Arena. Tickets are on sale now.