Jean-Claude Van Damme admits he is ‘ashamed’ of his ‘Friends’ episode
Friends is full of celebrity appearances but forJean-Claude Van Damme, he described how "ashamed" he is of his acting skills for his "strange" episode on the popular show. In the 1996 episode, called 'The One After the Super Bowl: Part 2,' the Belgian martial artist and actor played himself in the sitcom where Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox) both fancied him which led the besties to fight over him after they spotted the "Muscles from Brussels" shooting a movie in the Big Apple. The fight between Rachel and Monica occurs when Monica doesn't have the confidence to shoot her shot with Van Damme so Rachel does it for her - only for Van Damme to be interested in Rachel. Twenty-seven years on, Van Damme is highly critical of his performance. “My acting is so bad. I look so like a ham. Like, ‘Hey, girls.’ […] It’s like, I’m ashamed of myself," the 63-year-old told The New York Post. “So then I was on the set, and those girls, they go and they kiss me and they kiss me on the lips. I didn’t know what to do, how to do … It was strange. They were very nice.” While Van Damme may not be a fan of the episode, viewers at the time certainly were as it became the most-watched episode in the history of Friends with 52.9 million viewers watching after the Super Bowl. Despite the success of the show, Van Damme didn't know much about Friends before appearing as a guest star. “I didn’t know much about the show. So when I go to the show, I see those two beautiful girls and they say this is the hottest show right now in the world. So I was very glad,” Van Damme said. “And my agent said, ‘You have to do an episode with them. So you’re going to play this guy.'” Overall, the actor described the experiences as a "good memory" and also praised Aniston and Cox. “They [Aniston and Cox] were very open because they did the show every day. So for them, I enter into a place where everything is working like a very well-trained mechanic engine,” he continued. “It was amazing.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00
Justin Timberlake makes drastic Instagram move in wake of Britney Spears memoir
It's been a whirlwind week for Britney Spears and her fans, who have proudly completed her new memoir The Woman in Me within hours. The highly anticipated autobiography made waves across social media from the moment it was published on 24 October, with shocking revelations from start to finish. Some of which inevitably include Justin Timblerlake. And now he's made a notable move online. The pair dated from 1999 to 2002, before Timblerlake ended the relationship over text while Spears was working on her 'Overprotected' music video. Spears also gave the real heartbreaking meaning behind her hit 'Everytime,' in which she said she fell pregnant by the former NSYNC star. "I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated," she wrote. "But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young." Spears resorted to getting an abortion, adding: "I don’t know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father." Now, Timberlake has turned off his Instagram comments, assumingly to avoid backlash after being criticised on X/Twitter following some of Spears' candid claims. According to the Daily Telegraph, Timberlake isn’t "too happy" with the autobiography, telling an insider he's "not okay with it" and it purely from her point of view. "Justin is not at all happy about what has come out in this book,” the source reportedly claimed. "Doing this book has given Britney life, and she really doesn’t care who is offended by anything in it because it is what happened. She was there and lived through it. No one can say anything. She has got this all out of her and is moving on now." How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00
Taylor Swift receives 20 nominations for 2023 Billboard Music Awards - see the full list!
Taylor Swift has received 20 nominations for the 2023 Billboard Music Awards - see the full list of nominees!
1970-01-01 08:00
Kendall Jenner shares why she's 'scared' to have children
Kendall Jenner, 27, has candidly opened up about her fears about having children. In a recent episode of The Kardashians, the model said that while she loves being an auntie, she's "scared" at the thought of having her own. She went on to make a heartbreaking confession to Scott Disick while talking about her dog Pyro. "I swear he [her dog, Pyro] has really bad separation anxiety," she told Disick, Kourtney Kardashian's ex. "I have anxiety and I think he has anxiety. Maybe I’m the problem, maybe he feels my anxiety? I could be the problem. I’ve been really bad lately. It’s one of the reasons why I’m actually scared to have children." Disick went on to acknowledge that while "it is scary," she "can’t not have kids because of it". Speaking about her mental health, Jenner responded: "The scariest part for me is am I just going to get worse throughout life? Because I feel like it’s worse than ever right now." Jenner then opened up about the first time she experienced anxiety at the age of eight when she told her mother Kris Jenner to take her to the hospital. "I thought there was something physically wrong with me," she said. "At that time people didn’t talk about anxiety the way they do now. I never knew that’s what that was until later in life." This isn't the first time the star has opened up about her anxiety struggles. In an interview with Vogue last year, she explained how she winds down with a cup of tea and reading a book or journaling. She added that 15 minutes of meditation helps "settle my anxiety so I can get a good night’s rest". How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00
FGM: Woman guilty of taking child to Kenya for mutilation
Amina Noor is the first person to be convicted of assisting a non-UK person to perform FGM.
1970-01-01 08:00
Britney Spears has revealed why she takes so many nude photos of herself
Singer Britney Spears has revealed why she posts so many nude pictures on Instagram, giving an understandable explanation in her memoir. The 41-year-old pop icon recently released a tell-all book, titled The Woman in Me, detailing shocking new revelations about her life and opening up about headline-making moments like shaving off her hair in 2007 and her break up with Justin Timberlake. Since Spears’ 13-year-long conservatorship ended in November 2021, she has regained control over how own life as well as her social media accounts and regularly posts pictures of herself in underwear or wearing nothing at all. While the posts sometimes baffle fans, she explained why she does it in her memoir, writing that she gets “joy” from being in control over her own body and image. She wrote: “I know that a lot of people don’t understand why I love taking pictures of myself naked or in new dresses. “But I think if they’d been photographed by other people thousands of times, prodded and posed for other people’s approval, they’d understand that I get a lot of joy from posting the way I feel sexy and taking my own picture.” It is not the first time Spears has addressed the nudity on her social media page. In 2021, the singer captioned a topless post, writing: “Before I show you more pics of my body … I want you to understand my thoughts on exposing my skin!!!!” She continued: “In my opinion, it’s quite twisted the immediate response of when any woman is hot and they want to shed a layer … no … I’m not talking in a strip club or a performance … just on a practical scale of being in your car and realising you’re wearing a stupid long sleeve shirt in the summer!!!! “The immediate reaction to any woman who does this after shedding a layer is DAMN I FEEL BETTER … therefore you think you look better!!!” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00
Taylor Lautner has trouble in airports because he’s married to Taylor Lautner
Taylor Lautner has revealed all of the inconveniences of being married to someone also called Taylor Lautner. His wife, formerly Taylor Dorne, took the actor's name when they got married, however, despite its humorous nature, it's actually a bit of a pain. Speaking on the Good Guys podcast, he revealed: "TSA, airport, they'll be like which one of you is Taylor? And we're like 'both of us', and they're like 'which one of you is Taylor Lautner?', also both of us!" "They're like 'ehh this seems fishy', we're gonna send you to security." Click here to sign up for our newsletters.
1970-01-01 08:00
Jennifer Lawrence shares horrific aftermath of viral Hot Ones interview
Jennifer Lawrence has shared the rather grim aftermath of her Hot Ones interview that went viral for all the wrong reasons. The actor was almost reduced to tears as she fought her way through the rounds of spicy chicken wings - but even when the cameras stopped rolling, the effects didn't. “I passionately threw up after. Violently,” Lawrence told Andy Cohen. “I made it upstairs to my suite. My holding suite. We shot at the Four Seasons downstairs." She added: “My stomach gave me, like, eight minutes to get upstairs and then she… She… [vomited].” Click here to sign up for our newsletters.
1970-01-01 08:00
John Cena doesn't even need to look when signing autographs
John Cena has shared a new TikTok video of himself signing autographs for fans - and he's such a pro he no longer needs to even look at the paper. In the clip, the WWE star has an assistant moving each image after he's signed it so he can get through more in one go, however, despite his speed, he can look straight into the camera while he does it. "Why is that pen moving on its own", one user joked in the comments. Click here to sign up for our newsletters.
1970-01-01 08:00
Goldie Hawn reveals that she met 'aliens' in her 20s who 'touched her face'
Goldie Hawn has claimed that she had a truly unique experience when she was in her 20s, having supposedly been ‘touched on the face’ by aliens. The actress has long been a believer in UFOs and she spoke about them in a new interview with the Apple Fitness+ audio feature Time to Walk. Hawn claims the incident took place when she was working as a dancer when she was in her early 20s in California. “That was a time when, you know, there was a lot of UFO sightings," she said. "I remember this so clearly: I went outside my door, and I sat on the little ledge, and I looked up at the dark sky. And I saw all these stars. And all I could think of was, 'How far does this go? How little are we? Are we the only planet in the whole wide universe that has life on it?'" Hawn then recounted how she called out to any UFOs that were listening, saying: "I know you're out there, I know we're not alone, and I would like to meet you one day." Four months later, according to Hawn, she was working at another job in California when she took a nap in a friend’s car. There she heard a “high-pitched sound in my ear” and saw three "triangular-shaped heads”. She said: "They were silver in color, slash for a mouth, tiny little nose, no ears. They were pointing at me, pointing at me in the car as if they were discussing me like I was a subject. And they were droning.” The actress then said they "touched me, and it felt like the finger of God. It was the most benevolent, loving feeling. This was powerful. It was filled with light”. Reflecting on the experience, she said: "We can never ever lose our wonder. It's just no fun. It's really an important aspect of being an adventurer, where nothing is impossible." So, there you have it. Are you convinced by the existence of UFOs too? Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings
1970-01-01 08:00
UK to set up AI safety institute, PM Sunak says ahead of summit
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain will set up the world's first artificial intelligence safety institute, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Thursday,
1970-01-01 08:00
Laura Woods calls out sexist troll with savage 'microscope' comment
Laura Woods has slammed a misogynist troll who sexually harassed her online, following her on-air failed handshake with Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag this week. The TNT Sports presenter had retweeted a video of ten Hag accidentally leaving her hanging when she tried to shake his hand at the end of an interview. In the clip, she turns to the camera and laughs, shaking her hand in the air after the football manager inadvertently turned away her offer of a handshake. Unfortunately, one creepy troll on X/Twitter decided this was the time to make an unwanted sexual advance on the journalist. Woods hit back: “And will you provide the microscope too?” Surprisingly, the troll account has not yet taken down the post, despite the fact that commenters flocked to support Woods. Her tweet has over 7.3m views and 53,900 likes with most of the 2,000 reposts and thousands of replies praising Woods. One person replied with a crown emoji saying: “LAURA WOODS YOU DROPPED THIS.” Meanwhile, somebody else replied directly to the troll, saying: “Steven, based on your follows it doesn't look like hands are your preference. You stinky boy.” We’ll leave readers to check out who the person follows… Another person said: “I’d deactivate if I was you ? man just got ended.” And one other posted a video of wrestler Edge slapping John Cena's father during a famous WWE storyline. The interview came after ten Hag’s Manchester United team overcame a shaky run of form in recent weeks to squeak past Copenhagen at Old Trafford. Harry Maguire scored the only goal of the game after 72 minutes, but fans had their hearts in their mouths after the Danish team won a penalty with minutes left in the game. But Andre Onana saved it, securing a win as Manchester United paid tribute to Sir Bobby Charlton, who died on Saturday aged 86. How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00