List of All Articles with Tag 'brit'

We all know that rapper Stormzy (real name Michael Omari) has a talent for rhythm and poetry, but things got all too poetic on Friday (18 August) when the musician performed his gospel track “Blinded By Your Grace” to a crowd standing in torrential rain. The “Vossi Bop” star was headlining his co-curated bill for All Points East festival’s ‘This Is What You Mean Day’ event when the “spiritual” moment occurred, during the track which includes lyrics such as “I’m God’s son”, “what a God I serve” and – rather spookily – “and the rain was pouring”. And pour, it did. As Twitter/X user Sean Spooner put it, it was “absolutely pooooouring with rain” at “the second” Stormzy played the track to the 50,000 fans in attendance – something he said was “absolutely magical” and “one way to feel alive”. Others fortunate enough to make the event were in agreement, describing it as “magic”, “incredible” and a “beautiful experience”: The performance concluded the event in London’s Victoria Park, which also featured artists Kehlani, Sampha, Lucky Daye and Ms Banks. All Points East festival continues on Saturday with Field Day (featuring performances from Aphex Twin, Bonobo and SBTRKT), before The Strokes and Jungle make their way to the park next week. Stormzy himself acknowledged the special moment on Twitter/X on Saturday morning, when he simply tweeted “wow” along with happy tears, praying and heart emojis. Quite. Stormzy’s set from This Is What We Mean Day will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 10pm on Sunday. 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.

Hundreds of Taylor Swift fans congregated outside a New Jersey restaurant on Friday (18 August) in hopes of catching a glimpse of their idol. The 'Bad Blood' singer was attending Jack Antonoff’s rehearsal dinner ahead of his wedding on Saturday to Margaret Qualley. As soon as the news hit the area, fans took no time in heading over to wait outside. Footage has since gone viral across social media, with many people calling the behaviour "weird" and likening fans to "stalkers". In one clip, TikTok user Tori (@toris.intel) shared paparazzi footage of the star leaving the Long Beach restaurant. "This is not the look of a woman who is happy to see y’all," she told viewers. "The audacity metre is beyond." Tori went on to say Swift looked "scared" and called the scenes disrespectful to the singer, Antonoff and "everybody at that event." "To put her and him [Antonoff] and their friendship in this situation is really wild to me," she said. "I speak about celebrities and pop culture every day on this account, but this is just – I can't even wrap my head around the fact of 'I'm going to go and sit outside of the venue of a private event for hours waiting for Taylor Swift," Tori continued. @toris.intel #greenscreen #popculture #entertainmentnews #swifttok #erastour #celebrity #celebs #parasocial #taylorswift #taylorswifttok taylor swift wedding event new jersey Fellow TikTokers turned to the comments to share their takes, with one calling it "so wildly creepy and psychotic". Another said, "This is gross. They're going to make her go away." Meanwhile a third Swiftie wrote: "This is barbaric behavior. I’ve been a Taylor fan for almost 14 years now and we have ALWAYS given Taylor her privacy and space." 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.

Officials have restricted travel to Kelowna, a waterside city of 132,000 people.

Britney Spears has shared some thoughts about her split from Sam Asghari.

Writing after her husband filed for divorce, the singer says she "couldn't take the pain anymore".

Olivia Rodrigo recently dropped the music video for her second single 'bad idea, right?' from her sophomore album GUTS and fans couldn't help but notice some references from iconic TV shows and films. The pop-rock song is all about leaving your friends and lying to them about meeting up with an ex-boyfriend (always a bad idea), and the music video plays out this exact scenario where Olivia leaves a house party to reconnect with her ex - with some obstacles getting in the way. Here is a breakdown of all the different TV and films that were referenced: Glee Perhaps the clearest reference of them all was when Olivia was on the bus and ends getting a red slushie chucked on her, ruining her outfit. Anyone watching TV in the 2010s will know that's a shoutout to Glee where members of McKinley High's Glee Club would often receive a slushie to the face. We know Olivia is a fan of Glee and the show even got a mention in another song of hers 'Deja vu', from her previous album SOUR, where the lyrics go: "Watching reruns of Glee, being annoying singing in harmony..." Euphoria Euphoria is one of the biggest teen shows of recent years and so it's no surprise there was a reference in Roderigo's video in the form of the singer channelling Maddie (Alexa Demie) with her persistent knocking. While Maddie was knocking to go to the bathroom, Roderigo was knocking on her ex-boyfriend's front door. Empire Records (1995) and Can't Hardly Wait (1998) Olivia is known for her vintage fashion looks and her outfit in the music video took inspiration from a look Liv Tyler's character Corey Mason wore in the 1995 film Empire Records. The outfit that was referenced was a pale blue jumper but instead of the tartan skirt Liv wore in the film, Olivia wore a silver sequined skirt. Danielle Goldberg, a stylist on the music video revealed this in an Instagram Story where she posted a still from Olivia's video along with images from 90s movies such Can't Hardly Wait (1998) and Empire Records (1995) with the image of Tyler, calling it the “90s mood board of [her] dreams." Here is a still from Can't Hardly Wait (1998) where you can see the party scene inspo. Olivia's second album GUTS will be released next month on September 8. 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.

Blake Lively turned to Instagram with a stunning drinks campaign for Betty Buzz and took no time in teasing Ryan Reynolds in the process. Fans were in awe of Lively's posts, which saw her donning a red swimsuit for the shoot. One photo saw the actress taking a sip from her Lemon Lime flavoured beverage while jokingly sporting "your mom's 90s visor". Another post showed the actress by the pool drinking the Meyer Lemon fizzy drink, while the third upload revealed the "real crowd pleaser," in form of the Grapefruit flavour. The posts were soon flooded with compliments from fans and familiar faces, including Gigi Hadid, who commented: "Hotty mommyyyyyy." "Just here waiting for Ryan’s response," another person joked, while a third added: "FOREVER THE IT GIRL." Lively then went on to share a snap to her Instagram Story, where she poked fun at her husband Reynolds. "This is not a capture of a wild mating ritual (thought it could be). I legitimately chug @bettybuzz Meyer Lemon, all day. Every day. I am our number one customer." Blake then added: "I respect our customer's privacy so I won't reveal that @vancityreynolds is our number 2 customer." Lively previously opened up about the inspiration behind the alcohol version of the brand 'Betty Booze', writing: "Betty Booze comes from the lemonade recipe I made up 13 years ago for summer lemonade stands. Yeah. I still do lemonade stands. Yeah it was in my 20s that I really got into it. "The lemonade stand version is obviously alcohol free. And it sells out FAST. I would often have adults in my life request a version of my lemonade but with alcohol. It happened so much that that’s where the idea for @bettybooze was born." 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.

A fast-moving blaze threatens to destroy more homes in the western British Columbia province.

Russia has barred 54 more British citizens from entering the country, in response to the UK's sanctions against its citizens and enterprises, according to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This has been the worst wildfire season in Canada's history, as shown in these maps and charts.

Comedian turned commentator Russell Brand has weighed in on the ongoing wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, flouting conspiracy theories in his usual fast-paced, flamboyant style which are so outlandish, that he’s being compared to GB News anti-vaxxer Neil Oliver. Brand, who’s switched appearances on comedy films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek for his Stay Free podcast in recent years, uploaded a video to his six million subscriber strong YouTube channel on Thursday with the title, “Something Doesn’t Seem Right”. As the baseless conspiracy theory that the devastating crisis on the US island was not aided by climate change but rather a ‘space laser’ continue to spread online, Brand jumped in and dismissed those rightly questioning such a nonsensical argument. “Now, some people would say, ‘Oh, that’s dangerous misinformation – that should be shut down.’ I think the opposite. “Discuss it, look at it, investigate it. Either it’s true or it’s not true, we can decide for ourselves, let’s not get excited,” he says. We have, Russell – that’s kind of what journalists do for a job… Towards the end of the almost 23-minute-long video, Brand turns to the conspiracy that the fires in Hawaii were “started deliberately to benefit rich elites” such as the investment management company and financial services provider BlackRock. He continues: “Now look at the Ukraine war. Ukraine have already done a deal with BlackRock to rebuild their nation using BlackRock investment. “If you apply that mentality to this situation, if BlackRock end up benefitting from the fires in Hawaii, then the conspiracy is almost a redundant detail. Did they start it? Didn’t they start it? “Is it inevitable that the suffering of ordinary people leads to the benefit of rich elites and massive organisations like BlackRock and billionaires across the globe and why is Bill Gates buying all this agricultural land when he’s not a farmer?” Yes, that’s one whole sentence. “Doesn’t it all feel like a kind of macro-conspiracy that’s so diffuse, institutional, oddly abstracted and bureaucratically opaque, that sometimes you just want to simplify it into ‘they started this fire! They started it with a laser from space!’ “And whether it’s true or not, it not only feels true, in terms of its results it is kind of true. There is a conspiracy to keep you poor and benefit rich elites,” he vented, adding that the “next time there’s a pandemic” the elite are “gonna control you more”. In other news, thesauruses are in short supply around the world. And it’s Brand’s ranting about a shadowy elite and government control during a pandemic which has likely led to social media users on Twitter/X branding Brand (ha) a “frappucino Neil Oliver”, the GB News host who has long peddled conspiracy theories about vaccines and an impending “one-world government”. Back in August 2021 he said he’d happily catch Covid – y’know, an actually deadly virus – “for the sake of freedom”, just so you know the kind of dangerous nonsense we’re dealing with here. Others, however, have pointed out to user Matthew Dimitri – who shared a clip of Brand on X – that Brand was actually making an argument about elites and organisations benefitting from natural disasters like the one in Hawaii, and that Dimitri has “misrepresented” Brand: Except instead of rejecting the laser conspiracy theory outright, remember, Brand said he ‘thinks the opposite’ and that instead we should “discuss it, look at it [and] investigate it”, which isn’t a complete dismissal of the idea. He doesn’t really give a definitive answer on whether the claim is true or not, but rather suggests that the result of the whole ‘is it or isn’t it’ debate is more important, as if it’s part of a broader conspiracy or distraction “to keep you poor and benefit rich elites”. Perhaps a far more compelling argument around all this is that Brand should learn to keep things succinct, for the benefit of everyone... 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.

Mixed martial artist Dillon Danis is set to take on YouTuber Logan Paul in a boxing match in Manchester in October – on the same card as KSI vs Tommy Fury – and the Twitter spats are underway, to the extent Danis has claimed Paul and his fiancée Nina Agdal have had arguments over the MMA fighter’s recent tweets. In the build-up to Tuesday’s press conference and the bout later this year, Dannis has taken to X (formerly known as Twitter) to share images of Agdal – a Danish model – nude, and with other men. Insisting “everything’s public”, Danis alleged Paul reported his opponent for “targeted harassment” over the images and that boxing promoter Misfits is “censoring” him after he “went too far” with the social media posts. Over several tweets, Danis wrote: “One rule of mine: if you give it out, you’ve got to be able to take it. I embrace everyone’s comments, good or bad, unlike Logan who turns off his comments, revealing his insecurities.” “I never thought someone who filmed a dead person for a video would have limits.” “Come on, Logan. You really don’t have the guts to respond? This is getting dull. Show some spirit and fight back, kid!” Paul proposed to Agdal last month, and Danis has now shared a fake image suggesting there’s betting odds on the wedding being called off following his antics. The YouTuber is yet to respond to his rival’s teasing, instead limiting replies to his posts on X to those he’s either following or mentioned. And Danis’s regular posts of Agal kissing other men has divided the internet: Despite the online controversy over his actions, Danis appeared on the Full Send podcast and denied going too far with the posts. “Everything’s public. It’s not like I’m getting her ex-boyfriends sending me pictures of her in bed – that would be pretty f***ed up, I would imagine, right? “[It’s] public s*** that she can’t handle, that she used in her past, that’s not my problem,” he said. The fighter also claimed he’s “in [Paul’s] head” in the run-up to their fight, adding: “I can’t say too much but he’s really thinking about pulling out [of] the fight because of how personal it’s getting. “There’s definitely trouble in paradise.” He even said his rival “can’t even train right now” because of the Twitter teasing which is “driving him insane”. While there’s been no comment from Paul about whether he intends to pull out of the fight, it would make a change from Danis’s planned fight against KSI, which was cancelled earlier this year with the rapper’s manager claiming Danis was “underprepared” and “has no coach”. And Danis isn’t the only person fighting on 14 October who’s attracted criticism online, as KSI has been called out for a “disgusting” and “ableist” post on X taking aim at Fury. 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.