Category Entertainment News

An incredible moment was shared between the drummers of a legendary indie band and a tribute act for the group, with fans left in awe of the unprecedented moment

A legendary indie group’s tribute band left fans stunned when they clocked who was on the drums. Tribute acts are all the rage in the UK, and this year’s Fake Festival saw “history made,” as put by the lead singer of one such act. The band, belting out classics and lesser-known tracks of a beloved group, had a “something special” up their sleeve for those in attendance.

Fake Festivals, which hosts tributes to the likes of Oasis, David Bowie, and Pink, recently witnessed a jaw-dropping moment during Pulp’d’s set. At Sheffield’s Fake Festival on May 10, Pulp’d’s own Jarvis Cocker doppelgänger announced a thrilling surprise for festival-goers.

Pulp, led by the iconic Jarvis Cocker, is set to embark on their ‘More’ tour globally, with an inaugural gig in Glasgow on June 7 and a fully booked Manchester show at Co-op Live Arena on Saturday, June 21.

The tribute band’s lead vocalist exclaimed: “Can you believe this? This is something quite special, it definitely makes Fake Festival history. Because nobody in Fake Festival history has ever had a member of the band that they are tributing get on stage and play a song with them.”

Nick Banks, the longstanding drummer of Pulp since 1986, graced the stage for the band’s second-to-last tune.

Veteran drummer Banks revealed he had “joined” the tribute for a one-off performance on Bluesky, posting footage of his entrance on stage.

He wrote: “Joined Pulp tribute band last night Pulp’d. Had a blast!” They delved into the iconic Pulp hit, Disco 2000, thrilled to have Banks on drums.

Pulp’d shared the electrifying moment on the official Fake Festivals Facebook page with high praise. They wrote: “It was an incredible experience to play with one of our heroes.”

The group added to the amazement: “We watched him on Top of the Pops when we were younger and to get to play a song with him as a tribute band. An experience we will not forget. Thanks to Nick for making a band of Pulp fans very happy. True gent.”

After reuniting in 2023, Pulp, with Banks back on board, are set for their big comeback as Jarvis Cocker announced a slew of live dates, signalling their second revival.

Eager fans also heard whispers of new tunes, with the lead single ‘Spike Island’ launched just in April.

Come June 6, ‘More’, the highly anticipated new album from Pulp, drops and they hit the road in the UK and Ireland starting June 7. Banks shares his journey with Pulp and early influences in his upcoming memoir, ‘So It Started There’.

Thomas Markle Snr, the estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has moved to an apartment in the Philippines from his cliffside property near the US border in Rosarito, Mexico

Thomas Markle Snr, the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, is now living in a £500-a-month high-rise apartment on the island of Cebu in the Philippines, where he is being looked after by his son, Thomas Markle Jnr.

Now 80, Thomas Snr has relocated from his cliffside property near the US border in Rosarito, Mexico and moved more than 7,000 miles from his daughter Meghan, 43, and her family – Prince Harry, 40, and grandchildren Archie, six, and three-year-old Lilibet.

Exclusive pictures obtained by The Mirror showed the former Hollywood lighting director sitting alone while resting in blistering heat outside a supermarket near his new home on Wednesday. That was the day after Archie’s sixth birthday, which he missed.

READ MORE: Meghan Markle’s dad Thomas ‘struggling’ in £500-a-month Philippines flat

“I am ready for a change,” he told the Daily Mail. “I have felt stuck in a rut for some time and I am ready to meet new people and experience kindness.”

Speaking in January, when he revealed he was considering relocating to South East Asia, he said: “I travelled in that part of the world when I was a younger man. The people are so kind and welcoming, and they are respectful to older people. It is a place of culture and beauty.

“At 80 it is time to go somewhere where the people are lovely and I can enjoy a quieter, friendlier existence. In South East Asia the medical care is good, you can live reasonably cheaply, the people are kind and respect older people and the food is healthy. Mostly I just want peace. At 80, none of us know how long we have left. I want whatever time I have to be peaceful with none of the awful drama of recent years.”

His move follows a series of serious health issues, including two heart attacks and a stroke. The tropical climate of Cebu presents further challenges, with temperatures reaching 33°C this week and humidity levels nearing 90%.

Locals have seen the retired TV lighting director, once a regional Emmy award-winner, using a walking stick to navigate the uneven roads and heavy traffic near his new home. A source familiar with the situation said: “There are only two kinds of weather in Cebu: hot and humid, and hot and humid with rain. It’s tough even for much younger people, and Thomas looks like he’s having a hard time.”

Despite the difficult adjustment, Thomas Snr and his 58-year-old son – who was pictured leaving the flat hand-in-hand with a young woman – appear to be supporting each other as they settle in. The two had been living in a three-star hotel before recently moving into the apartment. They reportedly made the transition after shipping over personal belongings – including treasured photo albums featuring Meghan – to the island.

Before relocating to the Philippines, Thomas Snr had spent the past decade living in a beachside bungalow in Rosarito, Mexico, just 250 miles from Meghan and Harry’s estate in Montecito, California.

Though their new flat sits near a busy seven-lane road, it’s considered upscale by local standards in a country where the average annual income is around £7,000. Cebu is home to more than three million people, nearly a third of whom live below the poverty line.

The contrast between Thomas Snr’s modest lifestyle and the Sussexes’ multimillion-pound mansion in California is stark. On Tuesday, May 6, Meghan marked her son Archie’s sixth birthday by sharing a photo of him alongside a sweet message calling him her “sweet boy.”

The image, which showed the youngster from behind silhouetted against a bright sunset, was reportedly taken in Mexico.

READ MORE: Teeth whitening kit that made a 77-year-old’s smile ‘look amazing’ is 20% off

Model and TV personality Katie Price has opened up about her very first relationship with a jealous man 10 years her senior, who would cut off her clothes when she was just 15, she said

Katie Price’s trauma stems from childhood experiences with angry, jealous and perverted men, she has revealed in her most explosive interview yet.

The mum-of-five, who revealed she is in perimenopause at the age of 46, opened up about her first relationship aged 15, when she met a man 10 years her senior. Katie, who was then known as Katrina Infield – her birth name – was still in school at the time, and was picked up by an ex-prisoner who had his own Ford Fiesta XR2.

“My first boyfriend, I was 15 and he was 25,” she told Paul Brunson on a special episode of his podcast We Need To Talk. “He was always p****d. He’d just come out of prison.”

Katie’s mum Amy Price was understandably worried for her daughter and tried to stop her from going out with the older man – but Katie would pick fights with her and go out anyway, she said.

“My mum was nuts, but I denied it to her,” Katie recalled. “I argued with mum, ‘I’m going out, he’s picking me up’, and now I look back, thinking my mum was stopping me, but she wasn’t, she was protecting me.”

Katie didn’t have sex with her boyfriend until she was 16, after her mum begged her not to lose her virginity. “We didn’t have sex until my 16th birthday, after the East 17 concert,” Katie laughed. “My mum always said, ‘Don’t ever lose your virginity, make sure you’re at least 16.'”

But their relationship quickly soured as the older man would fly into jealous rages if he thought Katie was even looking at other men, she claimed. “The amount of times my mum had to pick me up, where he’d cut all my clothes off and I was naked in a telephone box, ‘Mum, he’s done it again. Pick me up’,” Katie revealed.

“If I was in a petrol station or anything, he’d be like, ‘are you looking at those men?’ I’d be like, ‘no, no, I’m not looking’. So I’d sit like that [head down] facing forwards. So jealous.”

Mum Amy was forced to take action to get her child away from the controlling boyfriend, and called Child Protection and the police to get him away from Katie. “I was training to be a nurse, because that’s what I wanted to do, be a registered nurse. But before I did the course, I worked in these nursing homes. I was like 16, and they had to call the police on him. These are memories that I’ve got, a big police van, him kicking off because he thought I fancied a guy that worked there,” Katie remembered.

“Oh my god, it took ages to get out of that relationship. It was dreadful. But I was so sucked into like, yeah, he’s older with the car. And it was near the end of my school years.”

Amy was right to be protective of her daughter – when Katie was seven, she was sexually assaulted in a park by a man who pulled her into a bush, she said.

“Basically a man did something to me, and I remember all the police being called. They took all our underwear and everything. He [the stranger who assaulted her] was basically saying to us, if you let me do this to you, I’ll go and get you an ice cream and all of this,” Katie recalled. “So that was my first, I suppose, traumatic thing with a man.”

Katie was later groomed by a photographer who took bikini pictures of her when she was just 13, after her mum had allowed her to do a photoshoot at his house.

“He was saying to my mum, ‘I’ve got these child model agencies, blah, blah, blah, we should go into modelling. Why don’t you come to mine? I’ll do a photo shoot.’ So we’d go to his house, a few times I went, but he’d never let my mum watch,” said Katie.

The photographer would make a pineapple milkshake and tempt her to drink it, while telling Katie’s mum and nan to take their dog out for a walk around the block.

“I didn’t like it, so I actually never drank it. And he’d tell my mum and my nan to just go and walk the dog and then come back. Then when we look at the pictures, I was in bikinis, sunglasses, doing all of this, sticking my tongue out, all of that,” said Katie.

“He’d always ring my mum and always speak to me, but it seemed so professional. Then we had a knock at the door, and it was the Child Protection. He’d been arrested. He had like, 12 different names, 12 different accounts, and he was in prison, and they said he was so obsessed with me that he had pictures of me in his cell. And this drink, he used to drug girls with it but I never took the drink.”

On a third occasion in her younger years, a man tried to pull her into his car, she said.

All eyes are set to be on Kim Kardashian today when she takes the stand to testify in a ‘grandpa robbery’ trial, almost a decade on from allegedly being held at gunpoint

Kim Kardashian was allegedly robbed at gunpoint and had millions of dollars’ worth of her jewellery taken from her when she was staying in a hotel in Paris on October 3, 2016. Today, she’s set to revisit what she has described as the “scariest thing” she’s ever been through in her life. The businesswoman and reality television star is expected to testify this afternoon to give her version of events of the ordeal, which saw several men posing as police officers storm into her hotel suite where she was staying during Paris Fashion Week and steal a reported $10million in jewellery. This included her beloved diamond engagement ring worth $4 million from her ex-husband, Kanye West. Kim, now 44, claimed she was held at gunpoint with tape over her mouth, put in her luxury suite’s bathtub and had her wrists tied. The mother, who broke her silence in January 2017, believed she was going to be killed.

READ MORE: Kim Kardashian ‘unbearably terrified’ when armed robbers burst into Paris hotel room, court told

Yesterday, (Monday, May 12) witness Abderrahmane Ouatiki, who was the hotel receptionist, told the court he was marched up to Kardashian’s hotel room and was made to translate the robbers’ demands. He said she was “in a state of complete terror” and “completely hysterical” as a “nervous” man directed a gun at her. Ouatiki added: “He was very aggressive and she was utterly terrified.” The night receptionist also stated he feared for his life, too, as the burglars were evidently irritated by Kardashian’s screaming. The court heard three people kept watch in the reception of Hotel de Pourtalès while two other men made Ouatiki take them to Kardashian’s suite, where they demanded she give up her engagement ring and stole other jewels. They were arrested three months after the ordeal alongside several others thought to be accessories to the robbery. A total of 12 people were due to appear in court, but one died in March and another was excused from the proceedings due to health reasons. All but two of the remaining 10 deny any involvement in the crime.

The precious jewels were never found, but the French authorities have reason to believe they were broken up and sold on. The case has been called the “grandpa robbers” trial due to five of the suspects being pensioners. Aomar Ait Khedache, the 68-year-old alleged leader of the gang, was questioned in court last week but had to write his answers down as he’s deaf and mute. The court heard that when Kardashian was tied up, she only wore a bathrobe, and the belt came undone. Ouatiki declined to discuss this in detail when her lawyer, Léonore Hennerick, asked about it. He just said: “You have to respect the victim, I think.” Recalling that moment with journalist David Letterman in an emotional interview in 2020, Kardashian said: “I was like, ‘Okay, this is the time I’m going to get raped.'” She also told Letterman she feared for her life and for her older sister, Kourtney Kardashian, who was in Paris with her.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ trial began at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in New York City on Monday as opening statements were read out to the jury

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ trial began in New York City on Monday with opening statements read out to the jury. The music mogul, who was supported by his children as they arrived in court on Monday, was arrested in September and is accused of an array of charges, including racketeering conspiracy, sex ­trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution.

He has continued to deny all allegations against him, with his multiple bail pleas rejected. The 12 jurors were sworn in at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in lower Manhattan on Monday following a delay due to concerns that some of them might drop out over the weekend if the panel was finalised on Friday as originally planned.

Combs’s defence team had requested the delay, but prosecutors had opposed the postponement. Prospective jurors were asked if they were familiar with several celebrities who may come up during the trial.

The proceedings quickly moved into opening statements, where both teams laid the groundwork for their arguments.

Here are the biggest bombshells from Monday’s opening statements…

Diddy allegedly asked escort to pee in Cassie Ventura’s mouth

Federal prosecutors detailed the abuse singer Cassie Ventura allegedly endured during her relationship with Diddy. One encounter saw Diddy allegedly instruct a male escort to pee in her mouth.

While on the stand, a male escort claimed he was told to pee on Cassie, and claimed he began seeing Diddy and Cassie when he was asked by his boss to work a bachelorette party.

However, when he arrived, only the former couple were allegedly there and he said he met up with them on several occasions for sex services.

‘Hotel hush money after Cassie attack’

Diddy offered hush money to a hotel security officer, the court heard. Israel Florez, who attended a hotel after the disgraced music mogul attacked his ex-girlfriend Cassie in 2016 told the court how he found the 55-year-old musician wearing nothing but a towel and sitting in a chair, ” slouched down, like with a blank stare … like a devilish stare, just looking at me,” he said.

Prosecutors showed the jury two mobile phone clips and three hotel surveillance videos related to the attack by Diddy on Cassie at the Los Angeles hotel.

Florez testified that he recorded the hotel’s video of the attack on his cellphone because he wanted to describe what he saw to his wife and was scared she wouldn’t believe him.

Jurors were shown video surveillance footage of an attack by Combs on Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel in March 2016 that prosecutors have maintained is a key piece of evidence in their case against him.

The video depicts Cassie with a bag at the hotel’s elevators just before Combs rounds a corner, strikes her and throws her to the ground before kicking her and then dragging her back toward their hotel room.

Florez had responded to a call of a woman in distress on the sixth floor of the hotel and said the display there was ruined. He said he told Diddy it would be charged to the room as escorted the former couple to the room before Cassie allegedly suggested she wanted to leave.

“You’re not going to leave,” Combs allegedly said. Florez said to the court that he replied: “If she wants to leave, she’s going to leave.”

After Cassie left the vicinity, Florez claimed when he was getting ready to leave, the rapper called him back and held out a stack of money, with a $100 note on top, telling him: “Don’t tell nobody.”

Florez considered it as a bribe and claimed he told Diddy: “I don’t want your money, just go back into your room.”

Diddy ‘forced Cassie into depraved sex acts with escorts’

Diddy allegedly kept Cassie drugged “half of every week” and forced her to perform sex acts on male escorts at “freak-off” parties he filmed.

Jurors were told he would use the tapes to blackmail Cassie, telling her “he could destroy her career” by releasing the videos.

Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson said his ex, singer and model Cassie, plus others, endured a cycle of abuse. She told the court: “Half of every week, Cassie was in a dark hotel room, high and awake for days performing sex acts she did not want to do on male escorts. These sexual performances lasted multiple days, and they involved multiple escorts.”

She went on to tell the court Diddy used lies, drugs, violence and threats to control his ex along with a woman referred to in court as “Jane”.

Ms Johnson said: “He told her he could destroy her career by releasing the videos of her performing sex acts on dozens of male escorts. They were souvenirs of the most humiliating nights of her life.”

Cassie was allegedly forced to participate in a ‘freak-off’ with an open wound on her face. When Diddy learned she was seeing another man, he allegedly “beat her, kicking her in the back and flinging her like a rag doll”.

Ms Johnson said: “You are going to hear about 20 years of crimes but he didn’t do it alone. An inner circle helped him commit crimes and cover them up.” She added Combs called himself “the king and expected to be treated like one”.

‘Violent threats to coerce women into Freak Offs’

Prosecutors claimed Diddy coerced women into drugged-up group sexual encounters, which he called “freak offs,” “wild king nights” or “hotel nights,” then kept them in line by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair.

Ms Johnson told the court Diddy once kidnapped an employee at gunpoint to help find his former girlfriend Cassie. When he did, he “beat her brutally, kicking her in the back and flinging her around like a rag doll.”

Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, is expected to testify.

Mr Johnson told jurors that Cassie was far from the only woman Combs beat and sexually exploited.

Diddy’s team admits to domestic violence

Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos said the trial is a misguided overreach by prosecutors trying to turn consenting sex between adults into a prostitution and sex trafficking case.

“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” Geragos told the jury.

“There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise.”

Geragos added to the court that Diddy’s violent outbursts, often fuelled by alcohol, jealousy and drugs, might have warranted domestic violence charges, but not sex trafficking and racketeering counts.

She told jurors they might think Combs’ is a “jerk” and might not condone his “kinky sex.” Geragos added: “He’s not charged with being mean. He’s not charged with being a jerk.”

*For confidential support, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Freephone Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit womensaid.co.uk If you or your family have lost a friend or family member through fatal domestic abuse, AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse) can offer specialist and expert support and advocacy. For more info visit www.aafda.org.uk

* If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999

Sky Sports star, Chris Kamara’s life was turned upside down in 2022 when he was diagnosed with apraxia of speech (AOS), which also affected his balance and co-ordination

Beloved football pundit, Chris ‘Kammy’ Kamara has heartbreakingly admitted he’s ‘no longer the person he used to be’ following his life-changing diagnosis. The Sky Sports star’s life was turned upside down in 2022 when he was diagnosed with apraxia of speech (AOS), which also affected his balance and co-ordination.

Chris, 67, flew to Mexico for treatment in a bid to reverse or slow down some of the effects of the neurological disorder, which include difficulty when speaking. However, despite initial success, the machine that transmitted radio frequency and magnetic fields into the body – similar to an MRI – became less effective, resulting in Chris stopping treatment.

READ MORE: Chris Kamara reveals heartbreaking reason why he apologised to his wife after diagnosis

Telling The Sun his family told him to accept the fact that his life has changed, he said: “In so many ways, the diagnosis has changed my life, I am no longer the person I used to be, so I would be lying if I said it hasn’t changed me.”

Alongside apraxia, Chris also has thyroid problems. He says he’s also battling with dyspraxia which affects his co-ordination and balance.

Admitting this is “quite scary”, he revealed: “The brain tells me that I am going to fall, and unfortunately I often do.”

The TV presenter, who has been on our screens for two decades, waited for 18 months before seeking help for his condition, which “makes talking difficult, with sufferers knowing what they’d like to say, but having trouble communicating their words,” according to the NHS.

Chris, who returned to TV punditry on Boxing Day, says he regrets waiting so long, admitting he wished he’d been diagnosed sooner.

Speaking to the Mirror for Mental Heath Awareness Week last week, the star said when he first realised his speech difficulties, he thought he may be suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. “It was a really tough period” he recalled.

The former professional footballer spent 24 years presenting Soccer Saturday alongside Jeff Stelling but stepped back in 2022 after his diagnosis.

Despite ‘not being the person he was’, Chris is still in demand on TV, saying of his future career on screen: “I am being offered opportunities all the time, so I can’t rule it out.

“Unfortunately, speech is what is needed for presenting, and mine has become unreliable as far as speed goes.”

Chris says he has seen “massive improvements” with the clarity of his speech, adding that he no longer struggles to find words, which he says was a big problem a couple of years ago.

Referring to his iconic delivery style in which he would fire off football stats and live match updates, he added: “My family constantly remind that I used to speak at 100 miles an hour anyway, which is quite unusual, so I should relax into speaking more slowly, which I now do.”

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