OHMYGOSSIP — ‘Derry Girls’ star Siobhán McSweeney has opened up about her hellish past three years.
The BAFTA-winning actress, 44, who played Sister Michael in the Channel 4 comedy, has told how she recently endured a run of horrors including a family bereavement, house fire, mystery disease and an accident leading to chronic pain.
She told the new issue of Radio Times magazine: “My father died during the second series of ‘Derry Girls’.
“Then my house burned down and then I had the accident (which left her with a broken leg.)”
Siobhán added about how it took her a long time to ask for help: “I forgot how to be vulnerable. Every day I just thought, ‘I haven’t died, brilliant, keep going’, but eventually enough bad things happened that I asked for help.
“All the horrible stuff that happened has taught me I have a great support network: the best friends and family in the world.
“I discovered I was able to not fall to pieces. Meditation helped me keep going. It’s not easy, like anything in life. You can be doing intermittent fasting on Monday and be face-down in a pizza by Tuesday. But I have stuck with meditation and it has helped immensely.
“I believe life is for living. So what if you’re tired or your leg hurts? Just get up and dance and have as many experiences as you can.”
After Siobhán also contracted a mystery illness that meant she had to shield during Covid, it was only as lockdown lifted that things began to improve.
She was offered a role presenting ‘The Great British Pottery Throw Down’, and she said of the opportunity: “It came about after I appeared on a ‘Derry Girls’ special of ‘Stand Up 2 Cancer Does Bake Off’.
“I found ‘Bake Off’ so stressful, genuinely. Everything was a disaster so I decided to chuck all my plans out the window and just have fun. From what I gather, Love Productions (which makes both shows) decided that an Irish woman having a breakdown would be perfect for the ‘Great British Pottery Throw Down’.
“When they asked, I was just finishing shielding and I was like, ‘Oh my God, yes please’. It’s not something I ever dreamed of. The presenting world is completely alien to me, but I’m incredibly grateful and it brings me great joy.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Emily Atack is pregnant.
The 34-year-old actress has taken to social media to announce that she’s expecting her first child with her boyfriend Alistair Garner.
Alongside a photo of her growing baby bump, Emily wrote on Instagram: “Hello Everyone, it’s been a little while but I’m back with some news. I’m delighted to share with you all that we’re having a baby!!
“I’ve never been so happy and utterly terrified at the same time. Please go easy on me.
“Every day is mixed with thrill, fear, joy, hysteria, topped off with a lot of vomiting – a bit like when you’ve just stepped off of the Oblivion at Alton Towers on a hangover.
“I’ve got to know my body on such an insane level. It’s made me appreciate the one I’ve been given SO much, I’m doing my absolute best to make it a home for the little squid I’m growing.
“We can already sense the baby is reclined on a mattress of peanut butter and jam sandwiches in there, demanding more chocolate buttons.
“I’m so happy to be writing all of this to you all. You’ve always stuck by me through the years, do stick around to watch me enter my mum era. Christ. Let’s go. (sic)”
Meanwhile, one of Emily’s pals has revealed that she’s “more than ready to be a mum”.
The source told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: “Emily is delighted by the happy news and has been pleased to tell family and close friends about her little one on the way.
“It’s the perfect end to her year and she feels over the moon.
“Emily is more than ready to be a mum and it is something she has dreamed of her whole life.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Dionne Warwick has become the first contestant to leave ‘The Masked Singer’.
The 83-year-old star – who is one of the most-charted vocalists of all time – has been unmasked as Weather on the ITV show.
Weather dropped a number of hints about her identity during the series.
She teased: “Sun, wind and rain are key parts of my core, but one of the panellists has seen me before.”
The music icon also described herself as being “very unpredictable” before the series.
Dionne explained: “You know, the weather is very unpredictable.”
Dionne also starred on ‘The Masked Singer’ in the US back in 2020, when she appeared as a mouse.
At the time, the award-winning singer admitted that she struggled to keep her identity a secret.
She said: “It’s kind of hard to disguise my voice, unfortunately, in this case, and they recognised my voice, there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Meanwhile, Joel Dommett previously claimed that the new series features “some of the best vocalists” in the history of the show.
The TV presenter said: “I think we’ve definitely got some of the best vocalists we’ve ever had on the show and we’ve had some really incredible ones in the past.
“The show goes through an interesting meandering of, we are all here for all the new characters, but then maybe the better singers start to get through in the last rounds, usually the final.
“Let’s be honest, it’s usually really incredible singers left at that point. This year I really do feel like we’ve got some of the best we’ve ever had.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Claudia Winkleman bars her three children from watching her shows.
The TV host, 51, who will be presenting the new series of the ‘The Traitors’ in the New Year and has been on screens this Christmas with ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘The Piano’, added she prefers to watch festive films with the kids she shares with husband Kris Thykier, also 51.
She told Radio Times magazine when asked if her family gathers to see her on TV over Christmas: “Absolutely not. They aren’t allowed to watch anything I do.
“This year we filmed ‘Traitors’ when the little ones weren’t at school, so they came to visit me.
“‘Why are we in a castle, mum?’ (they asked about the set of the reality contest.)
“They’ve never seen it. Much better.”
She added about their holiday movie picks: “We love ‘Home Alone’ and I used to always watch ‘ET’ at this time of year, so we’ll do that, too.”
Claudia went on about her family’s festive traditions: “We start listening to Christmas music with real gumption from 1 December and I put brandy butter on my toast every single morning.
“We love this time of year and still have the same decorations that I and my husband had as kids.
“They’re very moth-eaten and worn out, but who doesn’t like half a crocheted mouse hanging off a tree branch?”
Claudia added she and her brother are “gravy obsessives” and both cook over Christmas – but she asks him to make an “extra batch” of his gravy when they are together over the holiday and admitted “by 5pm we’re just drinking it like lemonade”.

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Jamie Dornan is “sensitive” to seeing Irish stereotypes on screen.
The Northern Irish-born ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ actor will return to TV in the New Year when the second series of the BBC’s ‘The Tourist’ airs, and added he’s planning to do as much of his future acting work in his homeland as he feels on the same “wavelength” as workers there.
He told the new issue of Radio Times magazine about Irish people being represented as stereotypes in TV and film: “I’m very sensitive to all that… I love working with Irish crews because you know everyone’s on the same wavelength.
“You do your best work when you feel comfortable in the environment, and you feel safe to put on a silly voice or do a silly dance or whatever it is that’s been asked of you on any given day. It’s in that space that good things happen.
“So, I am sort of making it a bit of a goal in my career, as long as I have a career, to tell stories from home.”
He added about working back in Northern Ireland, where the film business has been booming thanks to shows such as Game of Thrones filming here: “It’s somewhere I really like to be.
“Even though I’ve been in England 22 years now and there’s a strong version of home here with my wife and my three kids, I don’t think I’ll ever get away from calling Ireland home, particularly the north of Ireland.”
Jamie has been married to his composer wife Amelia Warner, 41, since 2013, and they have spent years living in the English countryside.
The actor also admitted he’s “intrigued” to see what a united Ireland “looks like”.
When asked if he is in favour of the concept, he said: “Jeepers! I’d be very intrigued to know what that looks like.
“The wrong language has been used for too long and they need to tell people how it would look for health and education and economically, and the actual everyday things of life, rather than the sentimentality of it, the flag in it, and all that bulls**t that’s been wrecking the place for many, many years.
“There’s more of a willingness to talk about it than there has been in my lifetime and I’m very open-minded to the idea of it.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Siobhán McSweeney insists she’s nothing like her friendly TV persona on the likes of ‘The Great Pottery Throw Down’.
The 44-year-old actress, best known for playing Sister Michael on Channel 4’s ‘Derry Girls’, added she has flaws including being “judgemental, chippy and bolshy”.
She told the New Year issue of Radio Times magazine: “When people see me on telly they see me at my best because I’m having fun and I’m interested and curious, so they think I’m like that all the time.
“I can assure you, I’m not. I’m judgmental and I can think badly of people. I can sniff out a lie.
“I’m argumentative and chippy and bolshy. I have no patience whatsoever when it comes to snobbery.
“Like, I’m a telly fan. If you’re snobby about stuff I’ll deliberately, provocatively go the other way.”
She added about the positives of her “bolshy” side: “I don’t think I’d be where I am today if I wasn’t stubborn and bolshy.
“Those things have brought me here and they have served me well but maybe I should put them aside now. Pottery makes me feel more peaceful.”
Siobhán added about the reasons she went into the entertainment business: “I became an actor to live as many lives as possible.
“I was a bit bored growing up and among the many things I am now – including exhausted – I’m not bored.”
Siobhán also talked about how she gets fan messages for showing off her cures.
She said: “I’m a plus-size woman, like the average woman in this country. I get hundreds of messages saying, ‘I’m your size, I would never wear that, but you looked lovely, where did you get it?’
“I make sure everything I wear is from the high street; everybody should have access to these clothes.
“We’ve been told our bodies are disgusting. We’re fed a lie that only white, nubile, unlined, uncurved bodies are deserving of love and sex and sensuality… I am sexy.
“My personal style is probably a little less colourful, a bit more gothic. But I love how I look on ‘Pottery’ and on the red carpet.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Lee Mack scrapped a plan to have the 100th episode of ‘Not Going Out’ feature a “nasty mishap”.
The comic, 55, celebrated the landmark show run with a Christmas special of the comedy, and said he decided it was too grim an idea for his character’s aunt to appear in the episode aged 100 before she suffers a grim fate.
He told the Christmas issue of Radio Times magazine: “We wanted to celebrate the 100th with my 100-year-old aunt coming round on her birthday and having a nasty mishap.”
Explaining how the plot was changed to feature Santa, Lee added: “Then when we realised it was Christmas, we though that wasn’t very festive – better make it Father Christmas instead.”
Lee also revealed the idea for the show – which features him playing a layabout who rarely leaves his London flat – sprang from a sketch in which he was looking out a window using a telescope.
He added: “I was doing a sketch show at the Fringe (comedy festival) in Edinburgh with Catherine Tate and Dan Antopolski.
“There was a thought I had that wasn’t even a joke – me looking out of a window with a telescope, my wife walks in and I suddenly look up at the stars.
“In other words, what the hell was I looking at?
“At best mildly amusing, not a sketch but an idea, so I parked it.
“Then I had another and another and the sketch grew into a quarter of the show and then became a pilot.”
Lee recently said at a preview screening of the 100th ‘Not Going Out’ show he
struggled to understand why the series gets lambasted by critics for being old fashioned and including its audience’s laughter track when it’s being filmed.
He said: “When some critics say and they often do, ‘Do we still need to hear people laughing in the background?’ I always think, ‘How do they cope when they’re watching a play?’
“Are they constantly going, ‘Shush, stop laughing at this comedy, I’m trying to watch this.’
“That’s the joy of it! We’re filming a live theatrical event… I like the idea that you’re filming something that’s happening on that night.
“And that’s what I think is different. I’m the first say we’re not a realistic sitcom, the language is not realistic.
“So without the laugh, it just sounds odd, because all the characters are quite often knowingly telling a gag.
“To have that to absolute silence would be weird. You need that laugh constantly for it to make sense.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ bosses are said to have a £2 million “war chest” to use to sign up stars for the new series – and Louis Walsh, Rebekah Vardy and Sarah Ferguson are at the top of their wanted list.
Former ‘X Factor’ judge Louis is the latest star who is said to be in talks about appearing in the new series of the celebrity version of the reality TV show, which will air on ITV for the first time in March.
A TV insider told The Sun newspaper: “The team behind the programme are being clever about the kind of celebs they’re considering.
“They don’t just want big names in there – they want stars who will bring something truly intriguing.
“Louis is just the kind of figure they want in the house – someone with serious life experience who not only has something to say, but isn’t afraid to say it.
“These characters have delivered some of the most outstanding moments of Celebrity Big Brother in the past and they’ll want to produce those again. That means they may need to splash some cash to secure the people they have their eye on – but it’s a worthwhile investment.”
‘Big Brother’ returned to screens on ITV last year, and the channel are said to be keen for ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ to be “on a par” with their own ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’ show.
The source added: “They want this to be on a par with ‘I’m A Celebrity’, which has a similarly claustrophobic environment involving celebrities completing strange challenges under the glare of the public eye.”
AJ Odudu and Will Best co-hosted the ‘Big Brother’ reboot in 2023, and the six-week series was one of ITVX’s top five most streamed shows.
The presenting pair will also return to host ‘Celebrity Big Brother’, which last aired in 2018 on Channel 5 when Emma Willis was at the helm.

Source: VacationHunter.Online

OHMYGOSSIP — Fleur East is pregnant with her first child.
The former ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘X Factor’ star is expecting her first baby with her fashion designer husband Marcel Robin, who she married in 2019.
Sharing a professional photo of herself cradling her bump, she wrote on Instagram: “2024 is gonna be different…” alongside a baby and love heart emoji.
The 36-year-old star’s post was flooded with well wishes and congratulatory messages from fellow ‘Strictly’ stars.
Oti Mabuse wrote: “Yessssssssss! Congratulations!”
Zara McDermott added: “Congratulatons! You’re going to be an amazing mummy xx”
While Kym Marsh commented: “Ahhh babe!!!! I’m so happy for you! Congrats.”
Fleur first starting dating Marcel in 2010, before they tied the knot in Morocco nine years later.
She previously admitted her family were keen on the couple to have children one day, but at the time she explained she had some goals she wanted to reach first.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper back in 2021, she said: “Everyone in my life is begging me to have kids. It’s got to that stage.
“Me and my husband are really driven and doing a lot with our own careers. He’s into fashion and I’m doing 10,000 things at once.
“We definitely want to have a family for sure but we’re not putting pressure on it. Our mums would say different, they’re itching now. They want grandchildren.”
Fleur first appeared on ‘The X Factor’ in 2005 as part of the group Addictiv Ladies, but they were eliminated on week one despite being mentored by show boss Simon Cowell.
She would return nine years later as a solo artist and finished as the runner-up, while she has continued to appear on reality TV shows such as ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’ and last year’s series of ‘Strictly’, while she took over from Rylan Clark on spin-off show ‘It Takes Two’.

Source: VacationHunter.Online