WHO 27 January 2020

As we all watch the British royal family, completely gobsmacked by their continuing controversies and the mess of Megxit unfolding (you can read all about them on pages 4-11), awards season, which is usually the talk of the town, has almost taken a back seat. But noise of the Oscar nominations has begun causing a stir of its own with sensational snubs and Aussie glory. The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite has made a return after actress Cynthia Erivo was the only non-white nominee in the acting categories. She is up for Best Actress in a Leading Role for playing the title role in Harriet, a film about Harriet Tubman, a slave who famously became an abolitionist. Jennifer Lopez who starred in Hustlers, Awkwafina who won a Golden Globe for her work in…

The Queen was left distraught on Monday after Prince Harry defiantly insisted he wasn’t changing his mind about quitting the royal family, amid rumours that he and Meghan are already lining up a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey. “He has reached out many times”— Royal insider During the tense, two-hour crisis talks at the monarchy’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, Prince Charles, Prince William and the Queen reportedly expressed their disappointment at the way Harry and Meghan had handled the announcement, but reluctantly accepted their decision to give up their royal duties. Meghan had been due to phone into the meeting, but the idea was rejected in case her call was intercepted and made public. When the bombshell news had first broken five days earlier, William was said to be “incandescent with rage” and…

Prince Harry’s erratic behaviour over the last 12 months, culminating in last week’s bombshell that he is quitting his official duties, has sent shockwaves through the royal family, with Buckingham Palace officials forced time and again into desperate damage control. With Prince Andrew still mired in scandal and the 98-year-old Duke of Edinburgh suffering continued poor health, the Queen has endured possibly the toughest few weeks of her nearly 68-year reign, culminating in Monday’s showdown with Harry. “They work tirelessly and never complain”— Palace insider But as her family faces an uncertain future, there is one very bright light at the end of the tunnel: the man second in line to the throne, and his dutiful wife. William, 37, and Kate, 38, have become model royals, hard-working, dedicated to their causes and,…

HOW TO IMPRESS ON THE BALCONY A lifetime of Buckingham Palace balcony appearances began in 1984 in the arms of Prince Charles. HOW TO SERVE William (in a parachute regiment beret in 1986) joined the army in 2006 and briefly served with the Royal Navy before joining the air force. HOW TO HAVE THE COMMON TOUCH Princess Diana (with William and Harry at a homeless shelter in ’93) showed her boys “that life happens beyond palace walls”, William said last month. HOW TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT WORK William loved his three years as a helicopter pilot in the Royal Air Force. In 2011, he proudly showed around his grandmother, with whom he is close. HOW TO BESTOW A KNIGHTHOOD In 2013, he undertook his first investiture, with a ceremonial sword, on behalf of the Queen, something he had been…

BRAD PITT HAS SEEMED happy and healthy while racking up awards and an Oscar nomination for his performance in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, and now he’s revealed who is responsible. Accepting his best supporting actor award from the National Board of Review on January 8, he began his speech with a shout-out to the presenter, Bradley Cooper. “Bradley just put his daughter to bed and rushed over here to do this,” Pitt, 56, said of Cooper’s daughter Lea De Seine, 2. “He’s a sweetheart. I got sober because of this guy, and every day has been happier ever since.” Pitt spent 18 months in Alcoholics Anonymous after Angelina Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 and has since been open about his decision to get sober. “I was boozing…

AMY SCHUMER HAS BEEN HONEST AND AT TIMES hilarious about every part of becoming a mother – from sharing videos of herself vomiting while pregnant to revealing details of son Gene’s“really scary” C-section birth in May. On January 9, she revealed she’s not done yet, opening up about her bid for a second baby.“I’m a week into IVF and feeling really rundown and emotional,” she posted with a picture of her bruised and swollen abdomen. “If anyone went through it and if you have any advice or wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with me, please do.” She added that she and husband Chris Fischer hadn’t yet planned their next step. “We are freezing my eggs and figuring out what to do to give Gene a sibling,” she explained. A month earlier,…