Sylvanian Families in legal fight over TikTok sex and drugs videos
The skits are such a hit that the account has 2.5 million followers and the videos have racked up 68 million likes. Sylvanian Drama also has accounts on Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook.It has partnered with major brands including Marc Jacobs, Burberry, Netflix and Hilton for advertising posts.
Sylvanian Families are marketed as "an adorable range of distinctive animal characters with charming and beautiful homes, furniture and accessories".They live in stylish houses surrounded by luscious greenery, woodland, a meadow and a river.Characters have names like Freya the Chocolate Rabbit girl, Ambrose the Walnut Squirrel baby and Pino the Latte Cat baby.They usually have wholesome adventures with stories entitled Picnic by the sea, Surprise shopping trip and Ice cream for everyone.
'Insecure people, diet culture, toxic men'
But the SylvanianDrama TikTok account sees the creatures in costumes and fake eyelashes, with captions saying things like "My marriage is falling apart" and "My boyfriend won't post me on Instagram".Court documents filed by Epoch with the Southern District of New York on 4 July and seen by the BBC accuse Ms Von Engelbrechten of infringing the company's copyright without its permission, causing irreparable injury to its goodwill and reputation.The court document states that in an interview with influencer marketing company Fohr, Ms Von Engelbrechten said her inspiration for the storylines came from "cringey TV shows and early 2000s comedy".She went on: "I'm also really inspired by my cats because they are extremely sassy and self-obsessed and can be so cute, but they also have no morals when it comes to killing other animals. I try to embody that with the Sylvanians."Asked why she thought her videos were so popular she told Fohr: "Maybe it's because it's coming from the voice of a 22-year-old who struggles with the same things as [they do]. I have a lot of storylines about insecure people, diet culture, toxic men, and sustainability, which I think other girls my age are also thinking a lot about."
A date has been set for 14 August for a pre-trial conference. This is when legal teams from both sides meet to explore settlement options or prepare the case for trial.Epoch Company Ltd and Ms Von Engelbrechten did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Ozzy Osbourne obituary
If a single individual could be said to embody the attributes of heavy metal, it would be Ozzy Osbourne, who has died aged 76 after suffering from Parkinson's disease and other disorders. In a career stretching across six decades, Osbourne became a star with Black Sabbath in the 1970s, launched a hugely successful solo career in the 1980s, turned himself into a heavy metal entrepreneur in the 1990s with his travelling Ozzfest rock festival, and in 2002 became an unlikely but wildly successful reality TV star, thanks to the MTV show The Osbournes. The Black Sabbath repertoire included songs with titles such as Paranoid, Evil Woman, Hand of Doom and Children of the Grave. The atmosphere was darkened further by the guitarist Tony Iommi's fondness for tuning his strings lower than usual, and lyrics (mostly written by the bass player Geezer Butler) that alluded to the occult and mental illness, sung in Osbourne's urgent high-register whine. His voice was not pretty but it was impossible to ignore as it sliced through Sabbath's dense sludge of drums, bass and fuzz-toned guitar. 'Sabbath never set out to be legendary,' Osbourne said in 2005. 'The only thing we set out to do was scare people.' Sabbath were a hit straight out of the blocks with their debut album, Black Sabbath (1970), which sailed into the UK Top 10 and reached 23 on the US Billboard chart, despite a hostile response from rock critics. Later that year they released the follow-up, Paranoid, which topped the British chart. Its tough and edgy title song gave them their only British Top 10 single (it went to No 4), while Iron Man and the outspokenly political War Pigs became staples of the Sabbath catalogue, each featuring a distinctive Iommi guitar riff. View image in fullscreen Ozzy Osbourne on stage with Black Sabbath at the Lewisham Odeon, London, 27 May 1978. Photograph:The band's hot streak continued through the albums Master of Reality (1971), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) and Sabotage (1975), but Never Say Die! (1978) signalled Osbourne's departure and the end of Sabbath mark one. Following some chaotic touring and abortive recording sessions, Osbourne was fired in 1979. An alcohol-and-cocaine lifestyle coupled with legal squabbles with their management and record label had sapped the band's strength. 'I was drinking like a fish for two years,' Osbourne said. 'I would have been dead in two or three years if I'd carried on.' Black Sabbath were managed by the notably unsentimental music mogul Don Arden, who assigned his daughter, Sharon, to keep Ozzy sufficiently acquainted with the straight and narrow to be able to write songs and perform. She became his manager and, in 1982, his wife. She launched him as a solo artist, leading his own band, The Blizzard of Ozz, which featured the gifted guitarist and songwriter Randy Rhoads. When Warner Bros and EMI turned Osbourne down as a solo artist, Sharon signed him to her father's label, Jet. Osbourne's solo career was immediately successful, his debut album, Blizzard of Ozz (1980), producing a couple of hit singles with Crazy Train and Mr Crowley, the latter inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley. View image in fullscreen Ozzy Osbourne with his then fiancee, Sharon Arden, Los Angeles, 1981. Photograph: Douglas Pizac/AP/PA Photos The follow-up, Diary of a Madman (1981), was another bestseller – in his autobiography, I Am Ozzy (2010), Osbourne cited this as his favourite album – and contained the drug-inspired hit single Flying High Again. However, Osbourne's progress was rarely incident-free, and, marriage aside, 1982 was a particular annus horribilis. In January that year, when he was perfoming in Des Moines, Iowa, an audience member threw what Osbourne took to be a rubber bat onstage, whereupon he bit its head off only to discover that the creature was real flesh and blood. He was forced to seek precautionary treatment for rabies. The following month, he was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after urinating on the Alamo cenotaph. As a police officer remarked, 'Son, when you piss on the Alamo, you piss on the state of Texas.' Osbourne was banned from performing in the city until 1992, when he made a public apology and donated $10,000 to maintaining the monument. In March 1982, Rhoads was killed in Florida while joyriding in a Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft, which crashed. The albums Bark at the Moon (1983), The Ultimate Sin (1986) and No Rest for the Wicked (1988) carried Osbourne through the 1980s on a surging tide of sales, but controversy was never far away. In 1986 he was sued by the parents of Daniel McCollom, who had killed himself while listening to Blizzard of Ozz; the parents contended that the song Suicide Solution was a 'proximate cause' of his death. The case was dismissed in 1988, but Osbourne was then sued by the parents of another young man, Michael Waller, who alleged that their son too was driven to kill himself by hidden messages in the song. Again, the suit was dismissed. In 1989 Osbourne was arrested for attempted murder after trying to strangle Sharon while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. This caused him to spend six months in rehab. After he recorded the album No More Tears (1991), he announced that the tour to promote it (he called it No More Tours) would be his last before he retired. The album contained Osbourne's only Top 40 solo hit single in the US, Mama, I'm Coming Home. The song was addressed to Sharon, from whom he was temporarily estranged. View image in fullscreen Kelly, Jack and Ozzy Osbourne, from the first season of The Osbournes, 2002. Photograph: MTV/Everett/Rex Features Recordings from the tour were released as Live & Loud (1993), which included many of his best-known songs, with the other members of Black Sabbath joining Osbourne for the track Black Sabbath. Live & Loud was intended to bring the curtain down on his career, and the track I Don't Want To Change The World won him a Grammy for best metal performance in 1994. Ozzy was born John Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham. His father, Jack, did night shifts at the industrial company GEC, while his mother, Lillian (nee Unitt), worked for the motor components firm Lucas. He had three older sisters, Jean, Iris and Gillian, and two younger brothers, Paul and Tony. The family managed to squeeze into a two-bedroom home with an outside toilet in Lodge Road, Aston. He acquired the nickname 'Ozzy' at primary school, after being initially dubbed 'Oz-brain', and while his school work was hampered by dyslexia, he showed interest in music and performing when he took roles in school productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas including The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and The Mikado. Soon, the influence of the Beatles loomed large. Ozzy claimed he had originally wanted to be a plumber, then decided he wanted to be a Beatle instead. He left school at 15 and took a variety of jobs, including trainee plumber, slaughterhouse assistant and apprentice toolmaker, and for a time worked at the same Lucas factory as his mother, where he tuned car-horns. An amateurish attempt at petty crime led to him being arrested while trying to steal a television, and he spent six weeks in Winson Green prison. View image in fullscreen Ozzy Osborne at his home in Beverly Hills, California, 1987. Photograph:After a stint as vocalist with an R&B band called the Approach, in 1967 Osbourne was recruited by Butler to sing with his band, Rare Breed. The group imploded almost immediately, whereupon Osbourne and Butler joined Iommi and the drummer Bill Ward to form Earth. In 1969 they changed their name to Black Sabbath, after a 1963 horror film featuring Boris Karloff. With help from the Birmingham club owner Jim Simpson, who acted as their manager, the band secured a deal with Vertigo Records, which released their debut album, recorded and mixed in two days. Osbourne's early 1990s retirement lasted only until 1995, when he came roaring back with a new album, Ozzmosis. Though hardly a classic, this sold three million copies within 12 months, and, after his follow-up Retirement Sucks tour proved one of the biggest successes of the summer, Osbourne and Sharon created the heavy metal touring package that they dubbed Ozzfest. This became an annual event in the US, Europe and eventually Japan. Ozzfest presented a huge array of metal, thrash and hardcore bands, from Metallica and Judas Priest to Slipknot, Slayer, System of a Down and Linkin Park. In 2004 Ozzy and Sharon presented Battle for Ozzfest on MTV, in which bands competed to be included on the 2005 bill. In 1997 Ozzfest included a Black Sabbath reunion, after which the band recorded the live album Reunion (1998) and continued touring into 1999, appearing again at Ozzfest. A mooted new Black Sabbath studio album was put on hold while Osbourne completed a solo album, Down to Earth (2001). It was now that his career took its surprising lurch into TV. Following an appearance on MTV's reality show Cribs, about celebrity homes, the Osbourne family were recruited for their own series, The Osbournes, which ran for three years from 2002. Featuring Ozzy and Sharon with their children Jack and Kelly – their elder daughter Aimee hated the idea and opted out – it resembled a surreal, outlandish sitcom liberally spattered with X-rated language, and became one of MTV's greatest successes. He was back on TV in 2016 with Ozzy & Jack's World Detour, which ran for three series, with Kelly joining her father and brother for the third in 2018. In 2003 Ozzy almost died after crashing his quad bike at his estate in Buckinghamshire. While he was in hospital he topped the UK singles charts for the first time with Changes, a Black Sabbath song he had re-recorded as a duet with Kelly. In 2005 he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame as both solo artist and member of Black Sabbath, and the following year into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Black Sabbath. An album of cover versions, Under Cover (2005), was received unenthusiastically, but he was back to chartbusting ways with Black Rain (2007) and Scream (2010). The long-awaited Black Sabbath studio album, 13, finally appeared in 2013. Memoirs of a Madman (2014) was a compilation of the best of Osbourne's solo work. In 2015 he received the Ivor Novello award for lifetime achievement at a ceremony in London. View image in fullscreen Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne in 2007. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters In 2016, Black Sabbath, including Ozzy, embarked on a year-long world tour, billed as the group's swansong. However, it was overshadowed by further Osbourne family dramas. In May, news broke that Ozzy had moved out of the family home after 34 years of marriage. It emerged that he had been having a four-year relationship with Michelle Pugh, a hair stylist, and was being treated for sex addiction. Ozzy made a public apology, saying that he was undergoing 'intense therapy'. In 2019, he was forced to postpone his No More Tours 2 concerts in Europe after being hospitalised with a respiratory infection. He was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, though this was not made public until 2020 (in 2005 he had been diagnosed with Parkin syndrome, a genetic condition which causes symptoms similar to Parkinson's). In September 2019 he reached No 8 on the US singles charts with his performance on Post Malone's Take What You Want, his first entry into the Top 10 since 1989. He released a well-received new solo album, Ordinary Man (2020), but cancelled planned north American shows to enable him to undergo treatment for Parkinson's in Switzerland. In 2022 he released his 13th solo album, Patient Number 9. Earlier this month he gave his concert farewell at Villa Park, Birmingham as the finale of a day of metal music. A short set of solo songs was followed by another with his original Black Sabbath bandmates Iommi, Butler and Ward, ending with Paranoid. In 1971 he married Thelma Riley, and they had three children, Jessica, Louis and Elliot. Shortly after their divorce in 1982 he married Sharon. She survives him, along with the three children from each marriage.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Axed Love Islander Andrada reveals villa feud is worse than fans see on TV after furious row with Meg
AXED Love Island star Andrada revealed a villa feud is worse than what fans see on TV. Irish bombshell Andrada, 27, was dumped from the ITV2 villa alongside OG Islander Ben. 4 Andrada and Meg clashed in the villa Credit: Eroteme 4 OG Islander Meg arrived on the first day Credit: Eroteme 4 Ben and Andrada were axed together after being voted 'least compatible' Credit: Eroteme The couple recently appeared on podcast Love Island: The Morning After. During the episode, Andrada opened up about joining the Islanders following her arrival in Casa Amor. She addressed the villa girls' pre-existing groups of Helena & Meg, as well as Shakira, Toni & Yasmin. Asked whether the Casa girls became their own group, Andrada shared: "You were able to join the other groups. "You know, [Shakira and Toni] did even say like, "Thank God you came in because [you all] are a great addition to the team. "Everyone was just so lovely - they were very, very welcoming." It comes as Andrada branded former co-star Dejon as "calculated" after he led her on and backtracked. Dejon grew close to Andrada in Casa Amor, calling her "babygirl" and saying she was the "best bombshell" they'd had. When they returned to the villa Dejon admitted he was still "open" and wanted to carry on getting to know her. But after a heated conversation with Meg, where she issued him an ultimatum, Dejon was forced to make a U-turn and shut things down with Andrada. Love Island's Ben admits he's had a 'reality check' after fans branded him 'vile' Speaking in her exit interview, Andrada said: "Dejon is a very smart and calculated guy who knows how and when to use his words. "We would have a flirty conversation wherein he'd ask me a question, I'd answer it, then I'd return the same question but he wouldn't answer because it would make him look bad. "When we got back into the main Villa, he was still open but then Meg got on his back and was upset. Then he shut it off. "I don't think that he shut it off because he wanted to, he did it because Meg told him so. "I definitely feel like things would have been very different if she wasn't there." Andrada and Ben were sent packing after the public voted them the least compatible couple. Speaking about her future with Ben, she said: "We want to see where things go because we get along very well. "There's nothing I can fault about the guy. He's a gentleman and treats me like a princess." Love Island airs on ITV2 and ITVX.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Trump's FCC chairman gloats over Colbert's cancellation days after meeting soon-to-be CBS owner
Your support helps us to tell the story Read more Support Now From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission, gloated Tuesday morning over the abrupt cancellation of Stephen Colbert's late-night CBS show and gleefully mocked critics of the move. 'The partisan left's ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is quite revealing,' Carr tweeted. 'They're acting like they're losing a loyal DNC spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws of economics.' Carr's post came the morning after Colbert fired back at Donald Trump for celebrating that the comedian 'got fired,' telling the president to 'go f*** yourself' during a blistering monologue that also saw the host promise that 'the gloves would be off' over his final 10 months on air. On top of that, Carr's mockery of Colbert and his defenders comes just days after the FCC chairman met with David Ellison, the CEO of Skydance Media and the son of pro-Trump billionaire Larry Ellison. According to a regulatory filing, Ellison urged Carr to finalize Skydance's $8.4 billion merger with Paramount, the parent company of CBS that recently settled a 'meritless' lawsuit with Trump over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Carr's tweet. open image in gallery Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, mocked critics of CBS' decision to cancel Stephen Colbert's show mere days after meeting with David Ellison about the upcoming Paramount merger. ( AFP via Getty Images ) The meeting between Carr, Ellison and Ellison's legal team took place two days before CBS announced that it was canceling Colbert's show, which Paramount executives claimed was purely a 'financial decision' due to the program's hefty production costs and the dwindling ad revenues for late-night programming on linear television. Asking Carr to 'promptly grant' Paramount's request to transfer control of its broadcast licenses to Skydance while highlighting 'the public interest benefits' of the merger, Ellison's team promised the FCC that CBS would be 'unbiased' under the new corporate leadership. '[W]e explained the Ellison family and RedBird represent fresh leadership with the vision and experience needed to drive New Paramount's long-term growth in the face of the challenges presented by today's media landscape, all while preserving and enhancing the legacy and broad reach of both the national CBS television network and the company's 28 owned-and-operated local television stations,' Ellison's attorney wrote in the filing. 'Relatedly, we discussed Skydance's commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS's editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers,' the lawyer added. While it has been recently reported that Colbert's show was losing as much as $40 million annually despite being the top-rated show in its time slot, prompting Colbert himself to call out his own network Monday night for leaking the data to justify the cancellation, CBS has been accused of appeasing the Trump administration with the 'politically motivated' move. Especially since Colbert not only has long been critical of Trump, but has also repeatedly blasted Paramount's decision to settle its lawsuit, likening it to bribery in order to grease the wheels of the merger. The Writers Guild of America, which represents the writing staff of The Late Show, said it is concerned that the cancellation 'is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration as the company looks for merger approval.' CBS staffers also aren't buying the company's claims that Colbert's show was canceled due to financial reasons. 'Many of us think this was part and parcel of the Trump shakedown settlement,' one network employee told The Independent. open image in gallery A defiant Stephen Colbert hosts The Late Show on Monday July 21 2025 days after its axing was announced ( The Late Show/CBS ) Meanwhile, several Democratic lawmakers who are already alleging the network is placating Trump with the cancellation have also pressed Ellison about the president's claim that they reached a side deal on the lawsuit settlement. Trump has asserted that, besides the $16 million Paramount agreed to pay, Ellison promised as much as $19 million in pro-Trump advertisements on CBS once the merger is complete. During Colbert's broadcast on Monday night, several other late-night show hosts and celebrities appeared to show support for the CBS star, including The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, who is also rumored to possibly face cancellation amid the merger. In his own passionate and profane monologue on Monday night, Stewart defended his longtime friend while acknowledging that he could soon be on the chopping block himself. At the same time, he called out Paramount for being fearful of Trump and his anti-media crusade. 'And if you believe as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavourless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar,' Stewart proclaimed. 'Why will anyone watch you? And – you are f***ing wrong.' Carr, who serves as Trump's own personal 'attack dog' against the legacy media, has long been a fierce critic of the mainstream press and has opened or threatened several investigations into media companies over their news coverage. Earlier this spring, Carr said 'all options remain on the table' in his agency's ongoing 'news distortion' probe of CBS News over the 60 Minutes interview behind the president's lawsuit. Months later, Paramount would reach its settlement with the president. Meanwhile, Carr's tweet prompted centrist pundit Matthew Yglesias to note that the FCC chief 'should clear the air' over whether The Late Show's cancellation is playing a factor in his decision to approve the Paramount-Skydance deal. 'I think the fact that it's been widely reported in the business press that Paramount believes settling lawsuits with Trump is key to winning merger approval from your agency is influencing some people's understanding of the Colbert situation,' Yglesias wrote, leading Carr to react with a wind blowing face emoji.
