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7NEWS
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness: Is Hugh's ‘good man' image in tatters?
Hugh Jackman is meant to be one of the good ones. That's his whole thing. He's a husband man. He's a music man. He's a good man. In the third ever episode of The West Wing, press secretary C.J. Cregg, in a moment of frustration, said, 'I don't care what it is, I care what it looks like'. That's her job. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today The façade of celebrity enabled by a publicity machine means no one ever really knows when it comes to famous people, only what it looks like. Timothee Chalamet looks like he's fun, Gwyneth Paltrow looks like she's a woo-woo queen, Tom Hanks looks like a top bloke. If you Google 'celebrities with good reputations', Jackman is right up top. What it looks like is more potent than what it is. That's why Jackman's soon-to-be ex-wife Deborra-Lee Furness's statement this week, after she officially filed for divorce, has the potential to damage his career. 'My heart and compassion goes out to anyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal. It is a profound wound that cuts deep,' she said. Furness never used the words infidelity or cheating, and betrayal can encompass many things, but the implication is clear. Every woman has either been cheated on or knows another woman who has felt the sting of deception from the person they trusted the most. It's a sensitive topic, triggering terrible memories of empty nights in an emotional black hole, or of nursing their friend through the darkness. Women remember. The same day as Furness's statement, Jackman posted a video of himself doing a skip rope routine scored to NSYNC's Bye, Bye, Bye with the caption 'FINALLY'. Textually, if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, the video is clipped from his Hugh Jackman: From New York with Love show at Radio City Hall. It's been running since the start of the year and he has struggled to nail that particular part of the performance, fubbing his moves or losing the beat. So, to finally get through must be exhilarating. Subtextually? Ooph. Jackman is a smart guy. He knows what it looks like. And it looks like he's trolling his ex-wife. Loading Instagram Post No one knows what happens in someone else's relationship and the factors that go into any marriage breakdown are complex. It's rarely simple, it's rarely one-sided. The only people who know what really happened are Jackman and Furness, and they too will have different versions of the same experience. But that's what it is, not what it looks like. Intentionally or not, one of the foundations of Jackman's career is that he's one of the good ones. He embodies romantic ideals – he can flex out as Wolverine and do an impressive amount of bench presses but is just as comfortable singing showtunes, flashing his big smile, having a laugh and going home to his wife. Jackman's charismatic masculinity is an effortless one, and heterosexual women find that extremely appealing in a world where so many men feel the need to perform a certain type of manhood. Crucial to his reputation, to the ability of female audiences to impose their fantasies about him on to him, has been his and Furness's love story. The pair met in 1995 on the set of Correlli, a 10-episode ABC series in which Furness played a prison psychologist and he portrayed an armed robber with whom she becomes romantically involved. They weren't Harley Quinn and the Joker, but the illicitness of the relationship fuelled the heat. Off-screen, he immediately found himself drawn to her, but it took him weeks before he worked up the nerves to confess his crush. 'I knew very early, I knew before Deb knew. Even when she tried to break up with me, I knew,' he told the Aussies in Hollywood podcast in 2018. 'I'm a very indecisive person, Deb really knows this about me, I can count on my hand the amount of times in my life anything has felt that clear to me, and when it happens it's such a relief.' He proposed four months later and they were married in April, 1996. In 2000 and 2005, they adopted their two kids, Oscar and Ava. When they met, Furness was the bigger name. She had been working steadily in the Australian screen industry since she was a kid with roles in The Flying Doctors, Kings and Neighbours and he was fresh out of drama school. After guest spots in local TV shows including Blue Heelers, Australian films Erskineville Kings and Paperback Hero and roles on stage in Beauty and the Beast, Sunset Boulevard and Oklahoma, he got his big international break when he was cast in X-Men in 2000. The movie was a huge hit and Jackman's turn as the gruff but upstanding Wolverine/Logan was noticed by everyone. His star was ascendant and his name was circulating among Hollywood casting directors. He made three movies that were released the following year: action thriller Swordfish, and rom-coms Kate & Leopold and Someone Like You. Opposite Meg Ryan and Ashley Judd, he played the romantic heroes, one an impoverished 19th century duke who time travels to 21st century New York City, and the other, a womanising TV producer who changes his stripes. While both films are minor works in the rom-com canon, Jackman was beguiling, and persuaded an international audience that he had shades beyond being a mutant superhero. The rom-com would not end up being one of his favourite spaces to play in. In addition to that pair of 2001 movies, he only made two other pure play rom-coms – Paperback Hero with Claudia Karvan in 1999 and Scoop opposite Scarlett Johansson in 2006. While most of Jackman's screen work has been in dramas, thrillers, action movies, many of them male-skewering fare including Chappie, The Front Runner, and 10 X-Men movies, he has still played the romantic lead in a slate of films that leveraged the goodwill of female audiences towards him. These included Australia, The Fountain, Reminiscence, Les Miserables and The Greatest Showman. The musicals are really interesting because Jackman's talents are so entrenched with his ability to entertain with his singing and dancing, and he has created a whole sub-ecosystem with that aspect of his persona. The Greatest Showman netted $US459 million off the back of a relatively $US84 million production budget partly because of repeated viewings from superfans. The movie opened in the US on soft numbers but word-of-mouth among fans pushed it to great heights. Significantly, that opening weekend in the US, 73 per cent of the audience were women. Depending on the country and the report, statistics for what percentage a live theatre audience is women vary, but the lowest estimate is 65 per cent. When it comes to deciding what show someone is going to splash out big money on, it's women who are calling the shots. Jackman needs women on his side. Post-COVID, he has only released two films, Florian Zeller's domestic drama The Son and the Marvel extravaganza Deadpool & Wolverine. He has three movies in post-production, including an action epic in which he plays Robin Hood. What he's been spending a lot of time doing instead is theatre. He did The Music Man on Broadway from late 2021 to early 2023, and now his Hugh Jackman: From New York with Love shows, which is playing sporadically until October. He's also currently doing a drama production off-Broadway, Hannah Moscovitch's Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, in which he plays a middle-aged university professor who engages in an affair with one of his students. The show runs until mid-June and it is all but sold out. For the 400-seat venue, only a handful tickets remain across the shows combined, and they cost between $US297 and $US400. So, at least for this production, Jackman's personal dramas haven't affected sales. There are still tickets available for his remaining Radio City gigs, skip rope routine and all. He and Furness were together for 27 years when they separated, which was announced in September 2023, nine months after The Music Man ended its run. Within two months, rumours flew that he and his The Music Man co-star, Sutton Foster, had an affair during the production, and that was the reason for his marriage break-up. In October 2024, Foster filed for divorce from husband Ted Griffin. Jackman and Foster were first photographed holding hands in public in early January 2025, and by the end of the month, she was at the opening night of Hugh Jackman: From New York with Love. Whether Jackman will take a direct financial hit to his career remains to be seen. Stanley Tucci cheated on his first wife, Kathryn Spath, with co-star Edie Falco before going back to Spath, but we still love him. Ewan McGregor bounced back after allegations of a crossover between his split from first wife Eve Mavrakis and the start of his relationship with Fargo co-star Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Brad Pitt is still riding high after the controversial, allegedly violent way his marriage to Angelina Jolie ended, a relationship that started with his infidelity to then-wife Jennifer Aniston. There's a study from a US company called the National Research Group that surveys 3000 audiences about actors that they would go to a cinema to see in a movie, and Pitt came in fourth in 2024. Jackman didn't make the top 25 but his Deadpool & Wolverine co-star Ryan Reynolds was fifth. Jackman and Pitt's stardom are hinged on different things. Pitt's 'heartthrob' status works differently to Jackman's. Since he's been in the public eye, Pitt has been attached to a bunch of women including Christina Applegate, Juliette Lewis, Gwyneth Paltrow as well as Aniston and Jolie. Jackman was always a one-woman man, and to a woman who is 13 years older than him. His female fans like that. Foster is only six years younger than Jackman but she's 19 years younger than Furness. Take a straw poll among the women in your life and ask them if, today, they like Jackman a little less. Don't be surprised at their answers. Whatever happened between him and Furness is, technically, their personal business. But his reputation as a good man, a wife guy who had posted effusive messages about his missus, is a business, so, it's not what it is, it's what it looks like.
7NEWS
20 hours ago
- 7NEWS
Mother of missing teen Pheobe Bishop speaks out as search continues around Bundaberg two weeks after she vanished
The devastated mother of missing teen Pheobe Bishop has spoken out and said she's happy to to be under fire as long as Australia keeps talking about her daughter. Kylie Johnson has been actively promoting the search campaign to find her daughter since the 17-year-old disappeared from the Bundaberg area, in Central Queensland, on 15 May. Every day, Johnson has been sharing posts on social media to raise awareness about the case, some of which have drawn nasty comments from trolls. As the search for her daughter entered its 15th day, Johnson penned a new post urging her supporters to not be angry at critics, explaining that they, too, contribute to the efforts to bring her daughter home. 'My posts aren't public to defend myself or react to negative comments. In fact negative comments also draw conversations and that's what WE as a FAMILY need to bring Phee home,' she wrote on Friday. 'Hell I will take any conversation if it has My BABY walking down our driveway or calling any of us as a family… 'So please don't be mad at the Trolls. They have a roll (sic) to play just like the amazing people who honestly just want our Pheobe home.' Police say Bishop was last seen about 8.30am on May 15 at Airport Dr in Bundaberg, Queensland, as reported to them by her housemates. The teenager was planning to fly to Perth to spend time with a boyfriend, but never entered the terminal or checked in for her flight. Bishop had been living with couple Tanika Bromley and James Wood in a home in nearby Gin Gin. Six days after she vanished, detectives revealed they are treating the case as 'suspicious' and set up two crimes scenes - one in Bromley's car and the other at the Gin Gin property. The grey Hyundai ix35 was later released after police examined the vehicle and seized items. Police have repeatedly said Wood and Bromley have been co-operative in the investigation and 7NEWS does not suggest either party is involved in Bishop's disappearance. A six-day search of the dense scrub and creek beds at Good Night National Park - involving police, firefighters, and SES crews - was suspended on Wednesday. Police said the greater Gin Gin area would remain a focus of their investigation and searches would recommence as needed and more information came to light. 'Investigations are ongoing and police are continuing to run out several lines of enquiry,' police said. Anyone with information, vision or sightings of the grey Hyundai ix35 between May 15 to 18 in the greater Gin Gin area is urged to contact police. Pheobe is described as about 180 centimetres tall, with a pale complexion, long dyed red hair, and hazel eyes.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Australian actor raising money to cryogenically preserve teen son
Editor's Note: This article contains discussions of suicide. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, you can find resources in your area on the National Crisis Line website or by calling 988. (NewsNation) — An Australian actor who lost her 13-year-old son to suicide has begun raising money to have the teen cryogenically frozen. Clare McCann, 32, of Sydney, hopes that future medical technology can bring back her son, Atreyu McCann. 7NEWS in Sydney reported that Atreyu died May 23 after what his mother described as months of incessant, violent bullying at his school in New South Wales. McCann said in an Instagram post that her son took his own life in a 'moment of unbearable pain.' Family files lawsuit against school alleging bullying led to son's suicide 'This was not his fault,' the grieving mother wrote. 'He was let down by the schooling system as he suffered horrendous amounts of bullying. Now I humbly beg of you to help me preserve his life and help me fight against this inhumane landslide of child suicides caused by unchecked bullying by schools and teachers.' McCann told 7NEWS that the students who bullied Atreyu were never properly disciplined for their behavior. She disputed Education Department claims that the school tried to intervene. The actress wrote on her GoFundMe page that she has medical records, psychologist reports and a formal PTSD diagnosis from Atreyu's doctor, along with emails 'proving (she) raised the alarm repeatedly' to school administrators, to no avail. She described her son as an 'intelligent, kind, sweet' boy who deserves a second chance if possible. 'Maybe it might not ever happen, but if there's a chance, you know, he deserves a chance,' McCann told the news station. Pope Francis says bullying at school prepares students for war, not peace Southern Cryonics, Australia's only cryogenics facility, has agreed to do what it can to offer Atreyu that second chance. 'A hundred percent we're not certain,' Southern Cryonics founder Peter Tsolakides told 7NEWS. 'No guarantees, but there's a reasonable probability.' McCann wrote earlier this week that her son's body needed to be frozen within the next seven days. 'If we miss this window, we lose the chance for any future revival that science may offer,' she wrote. 'This is about hope and justice. Refusing to let my son's story end in silence.' As of Friday, the fundraiser had raised just under $16,000 of the $300,000 goal. From deepfake nudes to incriminating audio, school bullying is going AI A New South Wales Department of Education spokesperson told NBC News the agency was devastated by Atreyu's death and that department officials and school administrators will work with authorities to determine the circumstances behind the boy's death. Australian residents who need help in a crisis can call Lifeline on 13 11 14, according to 7NEWS. For further information about depression, they can contact beyondblue on 1300224636 or talk to their GP, local health professional or someone they trust. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
First Responder Friday: Clemson Police teach children how to call 911
CLEMSON, S.C. (WSPA) – When you call 911, it's often during one of life's worst moments, but what if a child has to dial the number in an emergency? 'The hardest callers we deal with are children,' 911 dispatcher Pam Gravley, of the Clemson Police Department, said. 'Whether they're terrified or they simply don't know their information technology.' Gravley is an experienced dispatcher with more than 21 years of service to the City of Clemson. She's also the author of children's books. The idea came from bedtime stories she created with her family at bedtime. 'She (granddaughter) would pick her stuffed animals, and we would tell stories before she went to bed, and that was every night,' Gravley told us. 'They write the stories. I just put them on paper.' The characters in her books are all stuffed animals, but in her most recent work, Gravley decided to combine her job with her passion. 'Calling 911: An Interactive Guide to Calling 911 for Children' was published this year. 'The night before I started this book, we actually had a call from an eight-year-old who was at home with his six-year-old brother. He did not know his address. He did not know he lived in an apartment.' Gravley's book is designed to be read by children and their parents or guardians. It contains instructions for adults and some interactive projects for young people to learn vital information that can help in an emergency. 'Every second counts, and if we can get to your street, we're going to find you,' the dispatcher told 7NEWS. 'If you can give me the number of your house, we will go door to door until we make contact with you. But it's so simple, just teach your child your address.' Gravley reminded us that while cell phones can ping a location, that information is often insufficient for arriving first responders, especially at an apartment complex. The book contains pages where children can write out their name, address and their parents' names. She suggests parents post it in a common place, like a kitchen refrigerator, but at a lower level where children can see it. Now that the book is published, Gravely wants 'Calling 911: An Interactive Guide To Calling 911 For Children' to be read by children, parents, groups, schools, churches and more. 'I would love for this to be in the hands of every child in the school district across the state,' said Gravley. 'It should be part of the curriculum, because you never know. And it's not just a book. It's going to save their life or someone in their family's life.' You can order any of her children's books by visiting her website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
7NEWS
a day ago
- 7NEWS
Jogger hunted with machete in terrifying street attack by juveniles
Two juveniles have been charged after a 20-year-old jogger was targeted in an attempted phone robbery involving a machete. The shocking incident in Scarborough, about 40 minutes north of Brisbane, unfolded as the young man was out for a late-night jog in the early hours of Tuesday, May 27. Queensland Police confirmed that, at about 2:25 a.m., a group in a Hyundai Palisade approached the jogger on Scarborough Road and allegedly attempted to rob him of his phone. When he refused, the situation escalated. An unknown offender then allegedly threatened the man with a weapon, police said. Mobile phone footage from the incident shows a teenager wielding a machete as he chases the jogger down the street. Throughout the terrifying encounter, the victim remained remarkably composed, even asking his attacker, 'What are you going to do? Are you going to stab me?' The teenager responded, 'Yeah, you wanna die?' before attempting to strike. The victim's family reported the incident to police shortly afterward. A Scarborough resident, Shannon Mackay, told 7NEWS, 'I've never seen anything like that in this area. It's pretty full on.' Another local, Gayle Carroll, echoed the sentiment, saying, 'Pretty horrifying,' while her partner Nicholas Carroll added, 'Makes you a little less secure in our neck of the woods here.' A 17-year-old boy from Mango Hill has been charged with one count each of attempted armed robbery and driving without proper supervision while learning to drive. He is expected to appear in the Redcliffe Children's Court on Friday, June 13. An 11-year-old boy from Whiteside has also been charged with one count of attempted armed robbery. He will be dealt with under the provisions of the Youth Justice Act. Community advocates have raised concerns about how youth offenders are being handled by the justice system. 'The magistrates and the judges need to listen to what the community is expecting,' said Trudy Reading, from the advocacy group Voice for Victims. 'We want these kids to feel that there are consequences for actions.'
