logo
Drew Barrymore's surprising new role revealed

Drew Barrymore's surprising new role revealed

Independent07-03-2025

She may have starred in hit films such as ET and Charlie's Angels, and she even has her own chat show, but Drew Barrymore is hoping to make waves in her latest role.
Barrymore has been named as godmother of MSC World America, the brand's newest cruise ship.
The Wedding Singer star will take on the ceremonial role of blessing and naming the latest MSC Cruises' ship when it is launched in Miami next month.
It continues Barrymore's collaboration with MSC Cruises after she featured in a Super Bowl advert for the brand alongside actor Orlando Bloom.
Barrymore said: 'When MSC Cruises asked me to be the godmother of MSC World America, I immediately said yes.
'I absolutely love to travel –it fuels my soul – and being part of something that helps people set off on incredible adventures is just amazing. There's something so magical about cruises; they let you discover the world in this really fun, unexpected way. And to be able to name MSC World America and send the ship off with well wishes and good luck is such an honour.'
She will officially christen the ship during a naming ceremony on 9 April at the new MSC Miami Cruise Terminal, which will be the largest in the world.
After the ceremony, MSC World America will depart on a celebratory three-night sailing to Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve in The Bahamas, where the MSC Foundation will open a new marine conservation centre.
Suzanne Salas, executive vice president, marketing, ecommerce and sales for MSC Cruises USA, added: 'As a family company with more than 300 years of seafaring heritage, these events hold a special and personal significance for us. We value the important maritime tradition where our godmother breaks a bottle of champagne on the hull and officially names the ship, bringing good luck and protection.
'Drew is the perfect godmother for MSC World America, and we are thrilled to continue to partner with her for this campaign. She embodies our brand perfectly, with her exquisite style and grace, and her passion for the comfort and adventure we find through travel.'
Once launched, MSC World America will be the brand's largest ship serving the North American market.
It features the trademark 'World Promenade' as well as 19 dining venues, including the only Eataly restaurant at sea and a new All Stars Sports Bar and The Loft comedy club.
There is also a new outdoor venue called The Harbour, featuring the Cliffhanger over-water swing ride, a ropes course, a water park, a playground, relaxation areas and complimentary grab-and-go dining
MSC World America 's first itineraries will be from Port Miami to the Caribbean. It will offer sailings from Galveston, Texas, later this year and to Alaska in the summer of 2026.
The godmother of MSC World America's sister ship World Europa is Qatar Foundation chief executive Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, who took on the role when the vessel was christened in Doha, Qatar, before the World Cup in 2022.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Middle-aged women are having a moment – and my new favourite TV series shows why
Middle-aged women are having a moment – and my new favourite TV series shows why

The Guardian

time5 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Middle-aged women are having a moment – and my new favourite TV series shows why

The current TV landscape leans heavily towards shows that skewer the rich from the point of view of writers who wildly, if sneakily, admire them. To be less polite: if shows such as the most recent White Lotus, the Apple TV+ show Your Friends & Neighbours and movies such as Mountainhead are all enraptured with themselves and the people they dramatise – targets who have been known to become the shows' biggest fans – then for those viewers who have had enough, there is an alternative. It's in Norwegian, and while watching it will force you uncomfortably close to using the phrase 'hymn to middle age', it does at least avoid the 360 degrees of glorified douchebags presently dominating TV. The Norwegian dramedy Pernille unfolds over five seasons, recently made available on Netflix, and is part of a small but marked trend around women in middle age that offers a buffer against universal bro culture. In my experience, people don't generally like to be told they are having a moment, since it draws attention to the fact that they weren't previously having a moment and likely won't get another moment any time soon – but the fact remains that middle-aged women are having a moment. Mostly this takes the form of endless books and podcasts about menopause, a heartening suspension of an age-old taboo, even if it does occasionally involve a female content creator inviting us to accompany her on her 'menopause journey' (no thank you!) or forcing us to pay attention to Drew Barrymore. In the case of Pernille – written by and starring the 50-year-old Norwegian actor Henriette Steenstrup – it involves a storyline built around a single mother and child protection officer in Oslo managing her two stroppy teenage daughters, her dad who is 75 and who has just came out as gay, and her affair with her colleague, a lovely county lawyer called Bjørnar. In outline, it sounds wholesome and conventional, but the writing is acute and, for my money, Pernille has more interesting things to say about sexuality than, for example, Miranda July and all her feverish strivings towards the avant garde. And, of course, it has a lot more to say about the experience of being alive than a bunch of fictional billionaires exchanging bons mots. The takeaway from Pernille is that there is nothing more fraught and complicated than regular life, and nothing structurally more sound – or better engineered for load bearing – than the middle-aged woman holding it together. In the show, Pernille's ex-husband is a preoccupied novelist whose career always comes first, and when we meet her in the pilot she is mourning the death of her sister while trying to provide for her family and the abused children of greater Oslo. It feels rude but necessary to point this out: Steenstrup is a telegenic but regular-sized woman who probably wouldn't have been cast as the lead in a US show. When her kids tell her to fuck off, or her ex-husband writes a book romanticising the affair he had when she was pregnant, the verisimilitude makes the drama intensely believable. But the show is also funny and lightly delivered, avoiding the trap of a lot of content about middle-aged women, which is the suggestion that perimenopause is just one long, terrible nightmare. I refer you to the actor Naomi Watts, whose book, Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I'd Known About Menopause, is a helpful resource but also, possibly because publishing contracts come with big word counts, teases out every last drama of being a middle-aged woman as though it is a tour of duty in Afghanistan. (Watts has released a line of wellness products aimed at alleviating the worst menopausal symptoms and, of course, good luck to her.) These descriptions are a useful corrective to silence, but they tend to overlook the flipside of all the discomfort and change, which is the tremendous release of energy experienced by many middle-aged women, some of it angry, much of it related to the dawning realisation that in any given environment they are the most competent people in the room. Last year, I attended the fifth grade graduation ceremony of my children's elementary school and came away, after hours of chair stacking and table folding, reminded of the fact that a good chunk of the US public school system runs on the volunteer labour of middle-aged women, most of whom also have jobs. The figure of Pernille, meanwhile, without being weird about it, properly represents and celebrates this fact: a fortysomething Norwegian woman sitting in her car in her garage to hide from her children, counselling her dad through the ridiculous rollercoaster of his late coming-out, managing her serious job and making poor decisions around her own dating life is inspiring and touching – and exactly the hero we need. Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Aaron Rodgers says he got married 'a couple of months ago'
Aaron Rodgers says he got married 'a couple of months ago'

NBC News

time10 hours ago

  • NBC News

Aaron Rodgers says he got married 'a couple of months ago'

PITTSBURGH — Aaron Rodgers added another ring to his collection before he even signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The four-time NFL MVP quarterback and Super Bowl champion said Tuesday after his first practice with the Steelers that he got married "a couple months ago." Rodgers was spotted wearing a ring on his left ring finger in a photo the Steelers shared after the 41-year-old signed a one-year deal to join the team for the 2025 season. When asked if the ring was an indication he was married, Rodgers replied, "Yeah, it's a wedding ring." He wore the ring on Tuesday while participating in drills with his new team. Rodgers has revealed little about his bride. During an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" last fall, he mentioned he was dating a woman named Brittani but offered no other details.

Rodgers marks first day with Steelers by revealing secret wedding
Rodgers marks first day with Steelers by revealing secret wedding

BBC News

timea day ago

  • BBC News

Rodgers marks first day with Steelers by revealing secret wedding

New Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has revealed he had a secret wedding earlier this NFL's four-time Most Valuable Player spent months contemplating his future before deciding to sign a one-year deal with the signed his contract on Saturday and in a picture posted by the team on social media,, external he had a black band on his wedding ring 41-year-old held a news conference on Tuesday after spending his first day training with the Steelers and one of the last questions was about the ring."Yeah, it's a wedding ring," said how long he's been married, he added: "It's been a couple of months."Rodgers was released after a disappointing second season with the New York Jets, becoming a free agent for the first time in his 20-year had visited the Steelers and reportedly received an offer from the New York Giants, but in April, Rodgers said that he was "open to anything", including 2011 Super Bowl winner previously said that he delayed his decision because of personal reasons and, earlier in Tuesday's news conference, he said: "I was dealing with a lot of things in my personal life."Some things improved a little bit, where I felt like I could fully be all in here with the guys."I didn't want to short-change the guys and be signed but be elsewhere mentally or physically. Until I could be here and be all in, I needed to take care of my business." Who is Aaron Rodgers' wife? Rodgers, who spent the first 18 years of his career with the Green Bay Packers, has had a number of high-profile partners during his NFL he has not been married previously and did not share any further information about his wife on to The Pat McAfee Show in December, he said he had a girlfriend named Brittani while discussing Christmas one of the co-hosts joked about whether it was singer Britney Spears, Rodgers replied: "Not Britney Spears, no. This is Brittani with an 'i'."Speaking to Pat McAfee again in April, Rodgers added that he is "in a serious relationship"."I have off-the-field stuff going on that requires my attention," he added."I have personal commitments I made, not knowing what my future was going to look like after last year, that are important to me."It now seems that one of those commitments was a wedding, perhaps even a honeymoon too. What else did Rodgers say on first day? After visiting the Steelers, Rodgers has said that he remained in regular contact with head coach Mike Tomlin before informing him of his 53-year-old is the NFL's longest-serving current head coach having been in charge at Pittsburgh since led the franchise to a sixth Super Bowl win in 2009, before losing the big game to Rodgers' Packers in 2011, and the Steelers have not had a losing record in Tomlin's 18 seasons in why he chose Pittsburgh, Rodgers said: "It starts with Mike Tomlin. I've been a fan of his for a long time."The rapport that fell in between me and Mike made it to where, as I was going through my personal stuff, that there wasn't any other option for me. It was here or not play [retire]."Only Peyton Manning (five) has been named the NFL MVP more times than Rodgers, yet a second Super Bowl win has eluded what a Super Bowl win with Pittsburgh would mean, Rodgers said: "It'd mean a seventh championship for the city. That'd be great."I have a lot that motivates me, but this is about the love for the game - a game that has given me so much over the years - and making peace with a nice, long career."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store