US girl group could return after seven year break
The group, originally a quintet with Lauren Jauregui, Normani, Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, and Camila Cabello, continued as a four-piece after Cabello's departure in 2016 before going on indefinite hiatus in 2018.
Fifth Harmony released their debut album, Reflections, in 2015, featuring hit songs like Worth It and Sledgehammer, followed by the album 7/27 in 2016, which included Work From Home.
Camila Cabello left Fifth Harmony to pursue a solo career, explaining that tensions arose after her collaboration with Shawn Mendes and subsequent writing sessions with other artists.
Cabello claimed she was given an ultimatum, leading her to choose a solo career to explore her individuality, and she has since released her latest album, C,XOXO, in June.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
27 minutes ago
- The Sun
Chris Pratt dragged into Katy Perry's bitter legal row after he rented $15m home she forced bedridden veteran, 85, from
CHRIS Pratt could be dragged into Katy Perry's ugly legal battle to prise $6 million from an 85-year-old disabled veteran she evicted from his home. The Guardians of the Galaxy star and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger are renting the $15 million house previously owned by Carl Westcott who is bedridden in a hospice. 8 8 8 8 Westcott's family is outraged the popstar is suing the ailing man - who receives 24/7 care - for $6 million to cover back rent and alleged damages. Entrepreneur Westcott, a US Army veteran and founder of 1-800 Flowers - sold his Montecito mansion to Perry for $15 million in July 2020. Westcott had signed the property deal with Perry and Orlando Bloom's business manager, Bernie Gudvi, after initially agreeing to sell his 8.9-acre estate to the Firework singer. Gudvi accepted Westcott's counteroffer to increase the price from $13.5 million to $15 million, according to court documents. But just one month later, Westcott filed a lawsuit against Gudvi, alleging he was heavily medicated and not of sound mind when he contracted with Perry for the sale. He maintained that the contract was thus "void" on the grounds of his mental incapacity when he signed it. Westcott has been bedridden for nearly two years as he suffers from Huntington's disease, a brutal condition that stops parts of the brain working properly over time. However, the pop star's legal team successfully countered his challenge in court, and keys were exchanged in 2024, meaning that Westcott had to move out. The judge said Westcott presented no persuasive evidence that he lacked capacity to enter into a real estate contract between June 10, 2020, and June 18, 2020, the days during which he negotiated and signed the contract. His angry son, Chart, told The U.S. Sun in February that Perry was "a rich pop star who can buy any other house in the world... she has no empathy... it's unforgivable." Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau Spark Romance Rumors with Surprise Dinner in Montreal After her successful verdict, Perry then lodged a damages claim for $6 million against the elderly man - phase two of the legal action. According to court documents, the star's team is seeking compensation for alleged lost rental value, deferred maintenance, repairs for water damage and a fallen tree. Perry has paid $9 million so far for the $15 million property, which dates back to the 1920s/'30s, and is comprised of a large main house, three-bedroom guest house, one-bedroom pool house, gym building, and equipment building, per court filings. The Perry V Westcott case is heading back to court this month for the penalty phase, with his lawyers claiming in filings that her "16 witnesses have failed to produce any construction or repair contracts between Perry and any general contractor." The U.S. Sun understands that recovery of such costs is normal in civil litigation. RENTED OUT A source has told The U.S. Sun that the luxury house is currently being rented by Jurassic World star Chris Pratt, 46, and Katherine Schwarzenegger, 35. She is an American author and the eldest daughter of legendary Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger and NBC broadcast journalist Maria Shriver, who is also a member of the famous Kennedy family. The source added that, ironically, "Shriver initially put in a bid for the same house in 2020." Westcott's attorney returned to court last Tuesday ahead of a "likely attempt to subpoena Pratt because he is a material witness," she said. "For example, to establish when he started renting? He is living in a property that is wrapped up in a legal battle." The star is likely to be asked to testify - "Katy has already been mandated to do so," the source said. She added that Westcott's team "want to know how much Pratt is renting the house for. "Perry has claimed millions of dollars in damages, and claimed that it's not liveable - it's clearly liveable because an A-list actor is renting it." PRATT TESTIMONY Pratt's name was mentioned several times in court filings by Westcott's legal team last Friday in documents submitted to the Superior Court of the State of California. Before Perry's damages claim goes to trial, Westcott's attorneys have asked Judge Lipner to consider a "status report of issues to be resolved." Their August 1 document claimed: "Now, just before the Phase 2 trial, there is new, never-before disclosed evidence that Perry has rented out the Westcott property to the actor Chris Pratt and his wife. "Per a recent Daily Mail online newspaper article... 'sources close to Perry' say she rented the house to actor Chris Pratt." In their filings, the judge was asked to issue a pre-trial order to "allow Westcott's repair expert Steve Norris to do a short three-hour house re-inspection of the property... so he can see what repairs were done and opine as to their reasonable value." His attorneys also asked the judge to "allow Westcott to take several re-depositions limited to 3 hours each of the following persons: Perry and Gudvi... Chris Pratt (the tenant at the property, concerning its condition or problems and the terms of his lease agreement with Perry), and Orlando Bloom, Perry's boyfriend and father of her child, whose deposition testimony showed would personally be in charge of repairs." They alleged, "Now that we know Perry just rented out the house to a famous actor, conducting a trial on the real merits... means that this court's discretion should be exercised to allow the few and very short depositions requested and to allow Mr. Norris to spend 3 hours re-inspecting the property. "Another reason for allowing the short and few depositions is to allow Westcott and this court to know who owns the house after the recent split between Perry and her boyfriend Orlando Bloom." Their filings also alleged, "The current issues were caused by Perry/Gudvi waiting until after the September 2024 discovery cutoff to perform repairs, unless they did no repairs yet were still able to rent out the house as-is to Chris Pratt, which would tend to show the alleged repairs were exaggerated to drum up damages. "Either way, Perry's conduct is unfair and without the requested house inspection and short depositions requested by Westcott deprives him of a trial on the real merits." PERRY TO TESTIFY The source told The U.S. Sun today, "Judge Lipner confirmed that Katy will have to testify for at least an hour or more to the damages claim." Timeline of Katy Perry's mansion battle against veteran Carl Westcott July 2020: Entrepreneur Carl Westcott, US Army veteran and founder of 1-800 Flowers - sold his Montecito mansion to Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom for $15 million. Westcott had bought it only two months earlier for about $11.25 million. August 2020: Westcott filed a lawsuit against Perry and Bloom's business manager, Bernie Gudvi, alleging he was heavily medicated and not of sound mind when he contracted with Perry for the sale. The pop star's legal team countered and alleged that Westcott, who has Huntington's disease, had changed his mind on the sale, and the contract should be upheld. December 2023: A judge ruled in favor of Perry, and upheld the original sales contract. A Los Angeles judge ruled that Westcott failed to prove incapacity, finding him of sound mind during the sale negotiations. March 2024: The keys were exchanged. On May 17, 2024, Perry officially took legal ownership after the deed was recorded. 2024-2025: Phase two of the legal action - after the successful verdict, Perry lodged a damages claim for $6 million against Westcott, who is bedridden and currently receiving 24/7 care. This claim has yet to go before court. August 2025: Damage claims and ongoing litigation - Perry has paid $9 million so far for the luxury property and is now seeking $6 million in damages, citing structural defects, deferred maintenance, and lost rental income. TRIAL IN AUGUST The latest legal request follows filings submitted by Westcott's legal team, lodged in the Superior Court early July, and which outlined a further motion in the case. The July documents show that Westcott asked the court to "exclude any and all evidence, references to evidence, exhibits, testimony or argument relating to claims for alleged damages concerning repairs allegedly needed at Mr. Westcott's former home located at... Santa Barbara, California, as of May 17, 2024." Westcott's legal team explained in these earlier filings that escrow closed on May 17, 2024, and that Perry "must testify" in the penalty phase. "Since Gudvi had signed the contract in his capacity as the agent of the singer Katy Perry, the court ruled that Perry is the real-party-in-interest as to the damages being sought in the Phase 2 trial and that she must testify during the trial." Who is Carl Westcott? Katy Perry is suing the bedridden and ailing veteran, 85, who has a neurological disorder Carl Westcott was born in 1939 at the charity hospital in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Westcott and his five sisters lived in a house without indoor plumbing. When Westcott was six, his father - who drove a logging truck - left and never returned. His mother became a nurse's aide, earning just $5 per eight-hour shift. When he was five, Westcott sold papers in front of the Vicksburg Hotel, as well as chewing gum - he also shined shoes. "By the time I was eight, I was making more money than my mother." The judge ruled that the boy should go to Columbia Training School, a state institution, until the situation improved at home. When Westcott was 16, he asked his mother to change his birth date in the family Bible to prove he was old enough to join the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper and was honorably discharged as a corporal After becoming a successful car salesman, he joined Sopp Chevrolet as the dealership's general manager. In 1983, Westcott bought the NBC television affiliate in Tyler, Texas. His firm, Westcott Communications, became a pioneer in producing training programs in 18 fields such as automobile dealership management, certified public accountants, and law enforcement personnel. The company went public in 1989, and Westcott sold it in 1996. He said that, throughout his lengthy life, he has treated others with respect and dignity. Source: Horatio Algar Association of Distinguished Americans - Westcott was an award recipient in 2003 The documents also said that the property title, "was vested in the name of an entity supposedly owned by Perry called DDoveB LLC, a California limited liability company, formed on April 9, 2024. "The name of the LLC closely resembles the name Perry's daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, the child of Perry and her long-time actor boyfriend, Mr. Orlando Bloom. "Westcott's counsel has repeatedly asked Perry's counsel who owns the LLC that owns the house? "This court has always been told that Gudvi is Perry's manager and agent, and at her deposition before Phase 1 Perry testified the house was to be owned by her and she was buying it to live in, and not to rent." QUESTIONS OVER REPAIRS Westcott's legal team claimed in the July court document that under the terms of the house sale contract, it stated the home was being sold "in its present physical condition" and that the singer "had the right to perform inspections" prior to escrow being closed. They alleged that "Perry's lawyers did not even produce a written schedule showing each alleged item of repair and the cost Perry is seeking for each allegedly defective condition." His lawyers also claimed in the documents that "newspapers reported that Perry had just rented the house to the actor Chris Pratt, whose wife is the daughter of Maria Shriver, whom the court will recall from the Phase 1 testimony was bidding against Perry to buy the property in 2020." This revelation prompted Westcott's team to "immediately contact Perry's counsel" and ask for further details about her current rental agreement with Pratt, per the document. His lawyers also requested an "expert" to visit the property to "visualize any repairs." 8 8 The document added, "Given that many of her prior 'estimates' totaling $2.29 million pertained to habitability items, it defies logic and common sense that she was able to rent the house to a famous actor. "Perry's counsel flatly refused in a series of approximately half a dozen meet and confer emails to even disclose if repairs had been done." FAMILY HOME The Daily Mail reported in June that the singer had rented out the property to Pratt. A source told the paper, "The arrangement suits Chris, but it's a bit of a surprise given how Katy fought tooth and nail to get her hands on the house. "She previously suggested it was the ideal place for her and Orlando to raise a family. "After all that time, energy, and money, it seems unthinkable that they are not going to live in it." The U.S. Sun has contacted representatives for Pratt, Perry and Bloom for comment on the latest developments in the bitter case. STRUGGLE Westcott had intended to live in his home for the remainder of his life, according to his angry family. His son, Chart, ranted on X last November, 'My family has been in a struggle against… Katy Perry and now Orlando Bloom to defend the honor of my father, Carl Westcott, who is dying from Huntington's Disease. 'He is a US Army Veteran and winner of the Horatio Alger US award (an honor he shares with Clarence Thomas, Buzz Aldrin, and Donald Trump's father Fred Trump). 'Celebrity privilege, much like political lawfare, must end. We cannot afford any two tier justice in America.' The Horatio Alger Award is given to exceptional leaders who 'personify the American Dream' and have triumphed over adversity to achieve greatness. The latest revelations come as photos showed Justin Trudeau and Perry enjoying a night out in Canada after the singer split with Bloom earlier this year. 8 8
The Guardian
35 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘I feel equally rooted in bhangra and hyperpop, queer anthems and Sufi poetry': Pakistani star Ali Sethi on his defiant debut album
As a child, Ali Sethi was enthralled watching Sufi whirling – a religious dance – at nearby shrines in Punjab: 'There's this collective catharsis that takes place and, briefly, your caste, class, gender, appearance, they stop mattering. You have licence in an otherwise extremely hierarchical society to just express yourself.' This is something the 41-year-old Pakistani-American singer, songwriter and composer hopes to create himself. Though he's also a writer – be that his acclaimed 2009 novel, The Wish Maker, or contributions to publications such as the New Yorker – music became somewhere Sethi could be accepted, especially as a queer person growing up in Lahore. 'I think music has this shamanic function in south Asian culture,' he says, 'where things you cannot say in lay language you say in the love language of music.' Sethi's stratospheric, shiver-inducing voice dissolves cultural divides. Take Intiha, his sublime 2023 experimental album of Sufi poetry with Chilean-American musician Nicolás Jaar, or 2022's Pasoori, a bombastic raga-meets-reggaeton track which has surpassed a billion streams on YouTube Music, making it easily the biggest song to come out of Pakistan this century. When we speak, Sethi is about to release his debut solo album, Love Language, which builds on Pasoori's thundering, Technicolor global pop. Working with producers like Brockhampton's Romil Hemnani and Colombian musician Juan Ariza, it's exuberant and almost oversaturated, flecked with 00s R&B, Bollywood, drill rap, slinky flamenco, even a skit on the children's game 'akkad bakkad', all of it underlined with hallmarks of north Indian classical. Not everyone is pleased. Sethi trained under two of the greats of classical music, Ustad Saami and Farida Khanum, and his initial career was in that more traditional world; some fans yearn for 'the old Ali Sethi'. Though he's adamant about using south Asian ragas rather than western chord progressions to inform the melodies for his songs, Sethi recounts how even the esteemed Ustad Saami asked him whether his music lately is fusion or, simply, confusion. 'But I think in today's completely monstrous world, what could be a better reflection than confusion?' Sethi laughs. The work of Pakistani musicians, including Sethi, has been banned and removed from streaming services in India, where fans are forced to access the music via VPN due to escalating tensions between both countries. 'If you're looking at it from the point of view of ideologues, music is the one thing that has kept the populations of India and Pakistan deeply connected to one another,' he says. 'Every time the walls go up, the borders get re-erected but some song slips past, and there's an instant [release of] fellow feeling … this unspoken connection.' The brief outbreak of conflict between the two nations earlier this year has worsened the cultural divide. The opening track on Sethi's album was initially a duet with a well-known Bollywood singer, but a film industry body threatened that any Indian artist collaborating with a Pakistani artist would be blacklisted. The song is now censored, cut through with screams and distorted industrial textures. Sethi has also been unable to get a visa to enter India in nearly a decade. 'Ever since I started releasing music, my biggest audience has been in India, and it's the one place I've not been able to go,' he says. He wryly notes that the themes of 'forbidden love' he explores in his music are 'already in place' thanks to the travel ban. Inspired by Pakistani revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sethi's lyrics read like love songs, but they're layered with double-meanings about ethno-nationalism, Islamophobia, war, queerness and exile. On Bridegroom, he subverts a 13th-century qawwali sometimes sung at weddings, his untethered, gliding voice delivering coy lyrics that translate to 'don't ask about my husband'. This follows 'pretty rigorously orchestrated fake news' two years ago, falsely claiming Sethi and his partner, the Pakistani painter Salman Toor, had breached local law and married. He didn't know how to react, until the answer came in the form of this song. 'I realised the appropriate response is to troll them back with what they think of as semi-sacred music, saying, 'I refuse to give up my traditions.'' Sethi may laugh in defiance, but his words are tinged with sadness. 'These last few years have been a whirlwind, not always in the nicest ways,' he says. 'There's a lot of angst and despair, a lot of ruing the loss of a milieu, the loss of home – but also revelling in new homes, temporary shelters, finding community with other musicians in places like Los Angeles, London and New York.' He says the success of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is revitalising; the way he 'squares that distance between all these different communities.' Love Language, then, is Sethi's attempt at the same: a 'diary of displacement' with the accompanying tour set to be 'a variety show for the end times'. Mainly, he wants the music to be a refuge, and to capture his and his audience's multiplicities. 'I'm hoping it comes across as a work of synthesis rather than a work of assimilation,' Sethi says of his album, an attempt to make hybrid music without 'simplifying or diluting' any of its constituent parts. 'I feel equally rooted in Punjabi bhangra and hyperpop, equally conversant with queer club anthems and Sufi poetry; and, actually, I see all these connections all the time, because they dwell within me.' Love Language is out now on Zubberdust Media/The Orchard
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
A super-friendly 1950s-style diner, empty because of Covid: Leah Frances's best photograph
When I moved to Brooklyn in 2005, I noticed people building restaurants and bars that looked like 1950s diner-style restaurants, with soda fountains and lunch counters. I'm from Canada and I don't think there's a period that Canadians look back on with such nostalgia. I grew up on Vancouver Island watching old US movies and thinking, as I looked across the water towards America, that they showed what the country must look like. But our idea of those times is not firsthand, and I got really curious about that, and the fact that those days were not better for most people, only a few. That false, nostalgic feeling has become dangerous, with Trump's 'make America great again' rhetoric. In 2013, I started to drive around smaller towns in Pennsylvania to look at places that remain from the 50s. There are towns where maybe the mine closed, or the highway moved, and so – unlike the diners in New York, which keep getting renovated and extended – these places stayed as they were. It feels like the past and the present are somehow taking place at the same time. It's really beautiful. In 2015, I started an Instagram account called American Squares, which is more about nostalgia than it is nostalgic. When I look at these prefabricated diners that rolled off assembly lines, so beautiful in their details, I think about how the people who invented them would be shocked that we're looking back now in this way. They were trying to get to the moon: they were future-oriented people. I first came across this particular hot dog joint in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, called the Very Best, in around 2016. I noticed that it had a lovely Vitrolite storefront and a great typographic sign. It had closed the year before, having originally opened in 1921. But then a local took it on, restored it beautifully and reopened it in September 2019. When I passed by again in 2021, the owner was following social distancing guidelines, which is why it was so quiet. I'm often looking to give a sense of time and place to my photos, and one clue is the image of Hall and Oates on the jukebox. Daryl Hall is from Pottstown and John Oates grew up in the same county. The vintage arcade game Centipede was developed by Atari and co-designed by Dona Bailey – one of only a few female game programmers in the industry at the time. It was one of the first arcade games with a significant female player base. I was working on a series that eventually became my book Lunch Poems, in which this image appears. I focused on communal settings, or 'third spaces' outside of home and work. We lost those spaces for a period during the pandemic and we all suffered for it in ways we maybe haven't fully acknowledged yet. The Very Best was a beloved third space in this town, where you could stop and chat, where everyone was super-friendly. There was at one time a waitress who had worked there for 44 years. But I chose to photograph this business empty. What photographers leave out of the frame often influences the final meaning as much as what we include. There is a conspicuous absence of people in the pictures in this series and that's a construct, a metaphor for having been kept apart by the pandemic, driven to despair and divided by politics. I wanted to show the separateness and the emptiness. When we look at these pictures we might ask, 'What happened here?' or 'What will happen next?' The Lunch Poems photographs paint an almost postapocalyptic scene. Not all the pictures in the book were made during the pandemic, but that was the prism through which I began to look at the finished images, and it shaped the editing process. I frame my photographs carefully to explore what I want to communicate. For this series, if a space was crowded, I waited for people to leave. Or I arrived just as it was opening or closing. I do wonder whether that was always responsible, as I'm guessing the business owner doesn't want their restaurant to be captured as melancholic and empty. But rather than an actual place as it is in reality, I'm photographing an idea I'm thinking about, and that I hope others may understand and reflect upon. Born: Alert Bay, British Columbia, Self-taught; then an MFA from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, 'For this series, Bruce Wrighton, Birney Imes, William Eggleston. For colour, Wim Wenders. For poetry, Gerald Stern.'High point: 'The first time the New York Times Magazine published my work.'Low point: 'Maybe now. I've gone deep down a rabbit hole, spending years on a new project which, at this point, seems like it's not coming together.'Top tip: 'Put down your phone and look at the world. Look closely, then look again.'
