Victoria Coren says her daughter with David Mitchell is 'just like her' in rare update
Victoria Coren Mitchell has shared a rare glimpse into her home life with husband David Michell and their children. The Only Connect host has two daughters - Barbara, 10, and June, two - with David, 51, and they have always shielded them from the public spotlight.
But Victoria, 52, has revealed their bundles of joy have TV programmes they never want to miss - including one that Barbara loves just like her mum.
She told the new issue of Radio Times magazine: "My 10 year old loves The Masked Singer and old episodes of Poirot, just like her mother. The baby doesn't have any screen time; she's only 18 months old.
"She loves Bluey - an excellent TV show - but she doesn't know it's a TV show. She just thinks it's a source of really great plastic dog Weebles."
Victoria writes a weekly television column in the Saturday Telegraph, but she will never criticize bad actors because they are trying their best to entertain people.
Asked how she stays unbiased when she has to review a programme that Peep Show star David, 51, has been in, such as the BBC One detective dramedy series Ludwig, Victoria explained: "Well, I'm not a critic.
"When Ludwig came out, I just wrote a column about puzzles, but I knew it was a great series. I tend not to write about bad shows - I can't see any joy in attacking people who are trying to entertain.
"Mind you, I hated Squid Game and said so. But they seem to have soldiered on without my approval." Victoria has received lots of feedback from viewers who watch the BBC Two game show Only Connect, in which teams compete by finding connections between unrelated clues.
However, one letter criticising her comments on "a man's bottom" has stuck with her. Asked what her most memorable piece of feedback has been, Victoria said: "I've never forgotten a letter from a few years ago.
"We get all sorts of feedback - be it on a translation, or a clarification of parliamentary procedure. This chap asked, 'Why is it acceptable for Victoria Coren Mitchell to comment on a man's bottom?' I'm not even sure I had."
Last summer, Victoria and David were all smiles on a rare night out together without their children. It marked one of their first public appearances together since their surprise baby announcement 10 months earlier.
Victoria had shared the couple's happy news on social media back in November 2023. Taking to X, Victoria posted: "Many people are assuming my tweet yesterday was a Halloween costume.
"Not at all; last week I had a baby and nothing currently fits me except cloaks. Luckily, Only Connect is a pre-record. Happy All Saints Day."
David also addressed their new arrival in a short but sweet comment on the social media platform, posting under a tweet that read: "A huge congratulations to @RealDMitchell and @VictoriaCoren on the birth of their second child," he said: "Thank you! We're very happy."
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Daily Record
7 hours ago
- Daily Record
Queen's 'great, great, granddaughter' seeks DNA test and approval from Charles
Much has been made of Queen Victoria's relationship with her ghillie John Brown - now a woman who believes she is their descendant wants to prove the affair was real. A woman who reckons she might be the illegitimate great, great granddaughter of Queen Victoria says her ultimate aim is to get acknowledgement from King Charles. Angela Webb-Milinkovich, from Minnesota, believes she and her sister have ancestry that traces back to Victoria's lengthy, passionate affair with her devoted servant John Brown. Fresh research by historian Dr Fern Riddell indicates that whilst officially Angela's great grandmother Mary Ann was the sole child of John's brother Hugh and his wife Jessie, there's proof suggesting the infant might actually have been born from his secret romance with the monarch, during which they were clandestinely wed. Angela, 47, is now preparing to undergo a DNA test as the definitive evidence of her Royal bloodline. She insists she has no desire to profit from the tale, solely wanting to ensure her family's position in history receives the acknowledgement it merits, reports the Mirror. "My main goal is to have the story acknowledged - I want their relationship to be recognised and for the royal family to stop saying it didn't happen," she explains. "If I'm going to reach for the top, it would have to be from King Charles," she adds, when asked who she'd most like to hear from. "I mean, it's a great story and it has his family involved, too. So he would be interested in it." Or Prince William perhaps? "That'd be great. That's acceptable," she laughs. Angela was raised believing her family descended from royalty through baby Mary Ann. She can't recall exactly when she learned this, only that there was a tale about "a big boat trip... and a baby given to the family." Dr Riddell reached out to Angela during her four-year investigation for her new book Victoria's Secret, revealing she'd found that childless couple Jessie and Hugh had sailed to New Zealand in 1865, recording Mary Ann's birth there shortly afterwards - which could account for the maritime journey. Speaking on Channel 4's accompanying documentary, Dr Riddell suggested that the widowed Victoria could have easily hidden a pregnancy during the 1860s, then had the infant - her tenth child - secretly transported to the opposite side of the globe to prevent scandal. Records show that in 1874, Victoria funded the family's return voyage to Scotland, even providing them with a substantial residence on the Balmoral estate. Following John's death, she also relocated Hugh's family to Windsor to be closer to her. Angela managed to grant Dr Riddell access to a wealth of new evidence from the Brown family archive, which contained items and documents that have been in their possession for decades. Some of this came from a safety deposit box that Angela and her sister, who wishes to remain anonymous, opened about five years ago following their father's death. "We didn't know what we had, just that they were items from John Brown and Queen Victoria," she now admits. "It was always something in the back of our minds - we should probably get these looked at." Despite longstanding family suspicions that they were related to Queen Victoria, Angela was still taken aback when Dr Fern reached out. "I believed my family was being truthful with it, but we could never prove it. Once she sent that message, I thought 'What the heck? Is there actually validity to this?'" Angela, who is employed as a mental health care worker, expressed her desire for the love affair, which was concealed both during and after Victoria's lifetime, to be recognised as the truth. "It's something that I'm very proud of," she declared. "I want the vindication essentially for John Brown and just for my lineage, because they were not able to talk about it. It was something that just became that secret that we couldn't really share, but we knew." If Dr Riddell's account is accurate, and there's substantial evidence backing it up, Victoria and John shared a passionate romance spanning nearly two decades, right up until his passing in 1883. Beyond exchanging mutual declarations of love on his deathbed - "I told him no one loved him more than I did and he answered 'nor you - than me'" - she had also created a cast of his hand, precisely as she'd done for Albert. When her own end came in 1901, she requested to be interred with a lock of hair and photograph of the man who'd stood beside her for twenty years following Albert's demise in 1861. Letters that survived show her addressing him as "my beloved" and "darling one". Yet, at the behest of her eldest son Bertie - poised to become Edward VII - the Palace began systematically wiping John from history. Victoria's diaries were transcribed and altered, with the originals being destroyed. Bertie, who had frequently feuded with Brown, also commanded that the statues and private monuments Victoria had erected in his honour be demolished. Angela's grandfather passed away when she was in primary school, but she recalls him being distressed about the Browns' erasure from history. "My understanding from my Mum was that he was just really upset and bitter about it," she shared. "He didn't like to talk about it. Now, having both my parents and my aunt gone, we don't have those resources any more. So the bulk of the story I have been learning from Fern, which is amazing, and I'm so grateful." Angela remains hopeful that the Royals will eventually have to acknowledge the legitimacy of the claims made about her ancestors, as highlighted in a Channel 4 documentary aired on Thursday. "My gut says it's going to have to get acknowledged at some point," she suggests. "Scandals are always very exciting so I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions for them to answer. If they don't say anything, that's their choice. But I'd like them to acknowledge the truth of this love, to recognise that it wasn't cool to cover up and destroy evidence of the relationship they shared. Let's be real, Bertie was a bit of a d**k to the Browns. "That story deserves to be known, to have its own breath out there in the world. You don't get that kind of romance every day. It's what you'd hope for anybody, that you would find another chance at love. So I don't see why we should look down on that. It's like an opportunity presented itself and they embraced it, and I think that is beautiful." Angela is hopeful of undergoing a DNA test to confirm her lineage, but has been cautioned that it might take a while due to the necessity for impeccable source material for testing across four generations. "I'll let the scientists do the science," she says with a smile. "I'm a supporting character in this journey, and so I will follow wherever the story leads me. I'm totally open to it. So far it's been so exciting, so cool. I'm just really stoked." The tattooed American, sporting a nose-ring, firmly denies that she's merely attempting to profit from the Royal family's wealth. "Money is the furthest thing from my goal in telling this family story. It has always been to get Queen Victoria and John Brown's story the truth it deserves." She can't fathom any other reason why her family would possess valuable keepsakes from Victoria and John, including a brooch and a lock of hair. "Their relationship was authentic and genuine. They obviously had feelings for each other. It went well beyond a queen and man servant situation." There was a fair amount of speculation at the time about the duo, portrayed by Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly in the 1997 film Mrs Brown. In 1865, after Victoria requested John's transfer to the Royal Household at Windsor, two of her daughters, Helena and Louise, openly referred to him as 'Mamma's lover'. And the following year a Swiss newspaper published a story claiming Victoria, then aged 46, had privately married John and become pregnant. Angela would be delighted regardless of whether Mary Ann proves to be John or Hugh's daughter. "Either John Brown is my great, great uncle or he is my great, great grandpa. My family still played a key role in history with their friendship and closeness to Queen Victoria. I'm proud of their steadfastness in keeping the legacy of John Brown alive and their word to holding the secret close. It's still a beautiful romance that deserves its moment of recognition in history." With her Scottish heritage through her mother's lineage, Angela adores visiting the UK at every opportunity and confesses she occasionally feels more British than American. "I've always felt a little disconnected in the sense that I feel more at home over there. Scotland is my happy place. I would move there if I could, for sure."
Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
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David Attenborough's shock BBC series on animal parenting has filming firsts
From orcas who drown blue whales and a mother spider who gets eaten by her children, prepare to be astonished by the filming firsts The extraordinary lengths that some animals go to in order to protect their young are highlighted in Sir David Attenborough 's new BBC1 series Parenthood. For some species this means teaching their offspring how to hunt, for others it means raising their young in their mouths or even sacrificing themselves to ensure that the next generation thrives. Filmed over three years across 23 countries in six continents, Parenthood showcases never-before-seen animal behaviours in 6K ultra high definition. The five-part series contains stories about animal behaviour that has never been caught on camera before and explores the heart-warming dedication, astonishing ingenuity and remarkable patience of animal parents across the natural world. It comes after Prince William was given a stark warning from 'appalled' David Attenborough on a pressing issu e. Producer and director Jeff Wilson says: 'Many of these very intimate behaviours are very difficult to film. When you see the behaviours come to life on screen, I think it gives you a new appreciation of the investment and commitment of many parents.' African social spider: The story follows a mother spider in Namibia who raises 30 offspring alongside her 50 sisters in a huge nest - and eventually sacrifices her own body to feed her young in an act called matriphagy. This is the first time this story has been captured in full for a documentary. Sir David says that the health of the mother spider starts deteriorating from the moment she lays her eggs.'The demands of parenthood are taking their toll,' he says. As she prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the survival of the next generation, her struggling mimics the vibrations of a distressed insect prey. 'The hungry spiderlings descend en masse to their mother's dinner table one last time - only this time, she's the main course,' he says. And once they've eaten her, they turn their attention to their aunties. 'They eat every adult in the colony, one by one.' Iberian Lynx: The Iberian Lynx is the rarest species in the documentary and one mother is filmed raising her kittens in a disused barn in souther Spain. Once on the brink of extinction, the recovery of the Iberian Lynx in the region is a remarkable success story and shows how humans can help animal parents thrive in the face of enormous challenges. In the barn, three generations of lynx are raising their young together. Sir David explains: 'This was only possible because farmers changed their practice to suit the needs of the native wild animals. Quicker than anyone imagined, the native animals moved back - prey first, then predators. 'We're beginning to understand that it's possible to use our world for our needs while also providing for wild animals.' Banggai Cardinal Fish: In coral reefs, where space is limited, creatures must be creative to find homes for their young. In Indonesia, a dedicated banggai cardinalfish father overcomes this problem by raising his young inside his mouth. This means he must go for a whole month without eating himself. 'Starvation, however, is the least of his worries,' Sir David says, because predators are lying in wait to try and eat his baby hatchlings. Somehow he has to negotiate a way to move from the safety of a sea urchin to the looser tentacles of an anemone - happily sharing his new home with a clown fish who looks just like Disney's Nemo. Once there, some of the babies seem unwilling to leave the safety of his mouth, Sir David notes, so the father gives them 'a little encouragement' in the form of a watery cough. 'His 30 days of fasting have given them an excellent start in life.' Killer whales: Few species are more inventive in their search for food than killer whales, who are seen off the coast of West Australia indulging in some never before filmed 'practice hunting' behaviour. Led by the grandmother matriarch, who can live into her 80s, members of one orca family work together to submerge the head of another group member to practice stopping it from breathing. This technique is then used for real when the granny orca spots a blue whale who is alone and a prime target. 'Working as a team, the orca keep their victim's blowhole beneath the surface, exactly as they've been taught,' Sir David says. Orca have only recently been discovered to hunt blue whales - the largest animals that have ever lived - in response, it is thought, to changes in their ocean home. Tri Tri Goby fish: In a Caribbean river, a Tri Tri Goby harnesses the currents to oxygenate the eggs about to be laid by the female. In a perfect nursery pool he selects pebbles to create the ideal protection for her, but a once-in-a-lifetime storm sweeps him and everything he's built downstream. The determined wannabe dad - he's not called Tri Tri for nothing - must climb 300m of waterfalls if he is to get back to the pool and have another chance at parenthood. Sir David notes that he is 'much bulkier' than when he did it as a youngster and that 'juveniles with boundless energy' dart past somehow he gets there, and sets about starting over. This is the first time a Tri Tri Goby fish has been filmed transferring rocks to build a nest tunnel for his young.
Daily Mirror
11 hours ago
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Queen Victoria's 'great, great, granddaughter' seeks DNA test and approval from King Charles
American claiming to be the result of a long love affair between the monarch and her Scottish ghillie hopes that science will prove the findings put forward by social historian Dr Fern Riddell A woman who believes she could be the illegitimate great, great grand-daughter of Queen Victoria says her ultimate goal is to gain recognition from King Charles. Angela Webb - Milinkovich, from Minnesota, thinks she and her sister have lineage which stems from Victoria's long, romantic relationship with her loyal manservant John Brown. New research from historian Dr Fern Riddell suggests that while on paper Angela's great grandmother Mary Ann was the only child of John's brother Hugh, and his wife Jessie, there is evidence suggesting the baby could actually have been the result of his love affair with the monarch, during which they were secretly married. Angela, 47, is now planning to have a DNA test as the ultimate proof of her royal heritage. She says she has no interest in making money out of the story, only in ensuring that her family's place in history gets the recognition it deserves. 'My main goal is to have the story acknowledged - I want their relationship to be recognised and for the royal family to stop saying it didn't happen," she explains. "If I'm going to reach for the top, it would have to be from King Charles,' she adds, when asked who she'd most like to hear from. 'I mean, it's a great story and it has his family involved, too. So he would be interested in it.' Or Prince William perhaps? 'That'd be great. That's acceptable,'she laughs. Angela grew up believing her family was descended from the royal line stemming from baby Mary Ann. She doesn't remember precisely when she was told this, just that they were aware of a story involving 'a big boat trip… and a baby given to the family.' Dr Riddell contacted Angela during her four years of research for new book Victoria's Secret and told her she'd discovered that childless Jessie and Hugh had emigrated to New Zealand in 1865, registering Mary Ann's birth there soon after - which might explain the boat trip. Speaking on Channel 4 in the accompanying documentary, Dr Riddell argued that widowed Victoria could easily have concealed a pregnancy in the 1860s, and then had the baby - her tenth child - spirited away to the other side of the world to avoid a scandal. It is recorded that, in 1874, Victoria paid for the trio to be brought back home to Scotland, even giving them a large house to live in on the Balmoral estate. After John's death, she also moved Hugh's family to be near her at Windsor. Angela was able to provide Dr Riddell with access to a treasure trove of new evidence from the Brown family archive, containing items and documents that have been in their possession for decades. Some of it comes from a safety deposit box opened around five years ago by Angela and her sister, who wishes to remain anonymous, following the death of their father. 'We didn't know what we had, just that they were items from John Brown and Queen Victoria,' she says now. 'It was always something in the back of our heads - we should probably get these looked at.' Despite long-held family suspicious that they were related to Queen Victoria, Angela was still shocked when Dr Fern got in contact. 'I believed my family was being truthful with it, but we could never prove it. Once she sent that message, I thought 'What the heck? Is there actually validity to this?' Angela, who works as a mental health care worker, said her goal is for the love affair, which was covered-up both during and after Victoria's lifetime, to be acknowledged as the truth. 'It's something that I'm very proud of,' she said. 'I want the vindication essentially for John Brown and just for my lineage, because they were not able to talk about it. It was something that just became that secret that we couldn't really share, but we knew.' If Dr Riddell's version of events is to be believed, and there is plenty of evidence to support it, Victoria and John enjoyed a romantic relationship lasting the best part of 20 years, until his death in 1883. As well as making reciprocated declarations of love to him on his deathbed - 'I told him no one loved him more than I did and he answered 'nor you - than me'' - she also had made a cast of his hand, just as she'd done with Albert. When her own death came in 1901, she asked to be buried with a lock of hair and photograph of the man who'd been by her side for two decades since Albert's death in 1861. Surviving letters see her calling him 'my beloved' and 'darling one'. However, on the others of her eldest son Bertie - about to be crowned Edward VII - the Palace set about erasing John from the record. Victoria's journals were copied and edited, and the originals destroyed. Bertie, who had often clashed with Brown, also ordered the statues and private memorials that Victoria had created for him to be removed. Angela's grandfather died when she was in fifth grade but she remembers him being upset about the way in which the Browns were airbrushed out of existence. 'My understanding from my Mum was that he was just really upset and bitter about it,' she explained. 'He didn't like to talk about it. Now, having both my parents and my aunt gone, we don't have those resources any more. So the bulk of the story I have been learning from Fern, which is amazing, and I'm so grateful.' Angela is optimistic about the royals eventually having to accept the validity of the claims being made about her ancestors, also shown in a Channel 4 documentary on Thursday. 'My gut says it's going to have to get acknowledged at some point,' she reasons. 'Scandals are always very exciting so I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions for them to answer. If they don't say anything, that's their choice. But I'd like them to acknowledge the truth of this love, to recognise that it wasn't cool to cover up and destroy evidence of the relationship they shared. Let's be real, Bertie was a bit of a d**k to the Browns. "That story deserves to be known, to have its own breath out there in the world. You don't get that kind of romance every day. It's what you'd hope for anybody, that you would find another chance at love. So I don't see why we should look down on that. It's like an opportunity presented itself and they embraced it, and I think that is beautiful.' Angela says she's hoping to have a DNA test to prove her ancestry, but has been warned it may take some time because of the need for perfect source material for testing across the four-generation gap. 'I'll let the scientists do the science,' she says cheerfully. 'I'm a supporting character in this journey, and so I will follow wherever the story leads me. I'm totally open to it. So far it's been so exciting, so cool. I'm just really stoked.' The tattooed American, who wears a nose-ring, insists that she's not simply trying to cash in on the royals' wealth. 'Money is the furthest thing from my goal in telling this family story. It has always been to get Queen Victoria and John Brown's story the truth it deserves.' She says she cannot think of any other reason why her family would be in possession of precious heirlooms from Victoria and John, including a brooch and lock of hair. 'Their relationship was authentic and genuine. They obviously had feelings for each other. It went well beyond a queen and man servant situation.' There was plenty of gossip at the time about the pair, played by Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly in the 1997 movie Mrs Brown. In 1865, after Victoria requested John's transfer to the Royal Household at Windsor, two of her daughters, Helena and Louise, openly referred to him as 'Mamma's lover'. And the following year a Swiss newspaper published a story claiming Victoria, then aged 46, had privately married John and become pregnant. Angela would be happy whether Mary Ann turns out to be John or Hugh's daughter. 'Either John Brown is my great, great uncle or he is my great, great grandpa. My family still played a key role in history with their friendship and closeness to Queen Victoria. I'm proud of their steadfastness in keeping the legacy of John Brown alive and their word to holding the secret close. It's still a beautiful romance that deserves its moment of recognition in history.' With her Scottish roots from her mother's side, Angela loves spending time in the UK whenever she can and admits she sometimes feels more British than American. 'I've always felt a little disconnected in the sense that I feel more at home over there. Scotland is my happy place. I would move there if I could, for sure.'
