Latest news with #Don'tAsk
Metro
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
90s pop star slams fans for taking toilet break during show
Tina Arena has taken aim at fans who left their seats at her concert to go to the toilet. The Australian singer-songwriter rose to fame as a child on the variety programme Young Talent Time, then beginning her career as a solo singer aged 17. Her second album Don't Ask, which was released in 1994 reached number one on the Australian charts, while it also peaked at number 11 in the UK. In 1996 she was also nominated for International Breakthrough Act at the Brits, however it was won by Alanis Morissette. In the years since she's sold over 10 million records worldwide. However, this week Tina, 57, was left unimpressed while putting on a show at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne. During her Don't Ask Again tour, Tina launched a scathing attack on fans who moved from their seats. Some fans, who paid around $250 (£125) for tickets, needed a toilet break during her set. Them deciding to go to the bathroom reportedly upset the singer, who called them out. 'Back in my day you wouldn't leave to go to the toilet unless you were s***ting your pants,' she said, as reported by the Herald Sun. However, several people who were at the concert defended the singer. 'It was a tongue in cheek comment. Also let's not discuss the drunken people disrupting and having a brawl, that resulted in the show being stopped for 10 mins whilst security escorted the people out. Tina was absolutely fabulous,' Berni commented on FaceBook. 'I was at this concert and I have never experienced the amount of people getting up and walking up and down aisles. It was disappointing and disrupting to the patrons. Multiple people around me could not believe how many people were walking up and down…it was ridiculous. She simply asked for people to go between songs and not during a song, a reasonable request,' Raelene shared. 'It was annoying the amount of people walking in front while we were trying to enjoy her concert. She was amazing. I've never been to a concert where some patrons were so disruptive. I'm 65 and I can manage to hold my bladder. We were lucky she spoke so calmly and finished her sets. She also had to deal with a drunken argument in the front rows and a flash going off every few mins,' Pam added. More Trending Last year Tina faced backlash during a performance with Katy Perry at the Australian Football League's Grand Final. In 2023 she had been slammed after admitting she broke Melbourne's Covid lockdown rules in an interview, calling it 'totalitarian' and saying she 'couldn't cope' with being 'fear-driven'. When she took to the stage at the sporting event, boos could be heard among the crowd of 100,000 people at the stadium. Metro has contacted representatives for Tina Arena for comment. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: 70s rock star bans fans from using phones at upcoming shows MORE: Liam Gallagher responds to reports that Oasis axed iconic song from reunion tour setlist MORE: Oasis 'axe popular song from reunion tour setlist' due to Gary Glitter connection
Herald Sun
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Herald Sun
Tina Arena scolds concert goer for taking toilet break at Melbourne gig
Don't miss out on the headlines from Page 13. Followed categories will be added to My News. Excuse an audience member for being a bit chained up. Singer Tina Arena scolded her gig goers at the Palais on Thursday night for her Don't Ask Again tour, having the audacity to go on a bathroom break. Many were gobsmacked when the Chains singer reprimanded her crowd, some of them of the older set and who had stumped up a whooping $250 for the ticket, for getting up mid-performance to use the toilet. 'Back in my day you wouldn't leave to go to the toilet unless you were sh---ing your pants,' Arena crassly said. Burn! This is quite the line given there is the old urban tale of when the Australian pop icon and outspoken critic of Victoria's Covid lockdowns left midway through a media interview to go to the toilet, only to return and describe her, er, poo as like a 'giant dwarf'. Don't Ask! Page 13 Brodie Ryan, the now ex girlfriend of former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, has declared her break-up an 'end of an era'. Social media is yet to be convinced. Page 13 Kim Kardashian's spruiked it, Rita Ora got slammed for it and now PR mogul Roxy Jacenko is heading to Toorak for the latest celebrity biotech craze that comes with an eye-watering cost.
Spectator
30-04-2025
- Automotive
- Spectator
Is Subaru turning me into a lesbian?
I was recently lent the latest Subaru Forester to test drive, and I enjoyed its sturdiness, its space and the frugality of its 2.0 hybrid engine. But as my mileage progressed over the course of a week's bombing around the back roads of north Norfolk, I started to have a hankering for a nose ring, a tattoo of interlocking female glyphs, and to dye my hair pink and blue and wear dungarees. I put on a k.d. lang playlist, drove home, and watched Angelina Jolie in Gia. Was the Subaru turning me – a bloke, with no unusual pronouns – into a lesbian? Let me explain. In the 1990s, Subaru launched a calculated and groundbreaking advertising campaign on the US market. Rather than try to compete with their bigger rivals (Ford, Toyota etc) over the same white-bread suburban demographic, the Japanese company went after niche groups. Subaru built respectable but drab cars, yet they had a USP: their cars were all-wheel-drive, and the five groups that were identified as willing to pay a premium for AWD were teachers, healthcare professionals, IT professionals, outdoorsy types – and lesbians. Lesbians – ideally outdoorsy lesbians, who perhaps worked in computers, medicine or education – found Subarus' lack of flashiness appealing, and they liked that they could get a lot of stuff in the boot without it being as large as a pick-up. Lesbians were found to be four times more likely than the average consumer to buy a Subaru. So Subaru set to it, devising an ad campaign around lesbians' active and low-key lifestyles. They cultivated Subaru's image in such a way that it helped push gay and lesbian advertising from the fringes into the mainstream. Back in the mid-1990s, Don't Ask, Don't Tell was in full effect in the US military, the Defense of Marriage Act had just passed, and pop culture had yet to embrace the LGBTQ cause – so it was brave. And it worked. The image of Subarus in the USA is in marked contrast to here in the UK, where they're more likely to be driven by older wax-jacketed Tory-voting rural types or, in the suburbs, young men in tracksuits who like to leave tyre ribbons in supermarket car parks. The reason for this demographical schizophrenia is twofold: in the 1980s, when the brand first became established here, Subarus were sold through agricultural machine dealers, alongside fertiliser spreaders and seed drills. Then, in the 1990s, Colin McRae came along and drove a bright blue Subaru Impreza with gold wheels to glory in the World Rally Championship. Suddenly everyone in a baseball cap wanted to go sideways in a 'Scooby'. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the clientele was left-wing– and that's because Subaru of America hired an advertising agency called Mulryan/Nash that specialised in the LGBTQ community. One ad showed two Subarus, one with the registration plate CAMP OUT and the other XENA LVR, a reference to the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess, in which the female protagonists seemed to be lovers. There was another ad where the plate read P-TOWN, a reference to the popular gay vacation spot Provincetown, MA. There were taglines with double meanings plastered over billboards and magazine spreads: the image of an SUV or estate 4×4 tumbling over rocks with the words 'Get out. And stay out', or 'It's not a choice. It's the way we're built', or 'Entirely comfortable with its orientation'. Another read: 'It loves camping, dogs and long-term commitment. Too bad it's only a car'. Was the Subaru turning me – a bloke, with no unusual pronouns – into a lesbian?' Those that got it enjoyed decoding it. It was wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Those that didn't just saw a car with a bike rack and a kayak on the roof. Although 'Likes to be driven hard and put away wet', which took some prime real estate in a 2003 issue of Vanity Fair, was perhaps a less subtle effort. While a lot of straight people were blind to the subtexts of the adverts, Subaru did receive letters from a grassroots group that accused the car manufacturer of promoting homosexuality. Everyone who wrote said they'd never buy a Subaru again. But the marketing team quickly found out that none of those threatening a boycott had ever bought a Subaru before. Some of them even misspelt Subaru. Subaru wasn't the first company to create advertisements for gay and lesbian audiences, but it was the first in the United States to do so transparently and consistently. It's a campaign that has been studied in universities, and discussed in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Atlantic. Today, high concentrations of Subarus are to be found in the liberal meccas of San Francisco, Portland, Burlington in Vermont and Northampton, Massachusetts, and Subaru has donated millions of pounds to HIV/AIDS research and LGBTQ causes. All of which makes me feel very comfortable behind the wheel of my borrowed 2025 Forester. Now where can I buy some Birkenstocks…
Daily Mirror
22-04-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Winner disqualified after testing positive for banned drug prescribed to trainer's dog
Friends Don't Ask, trained by Clare Ellam, was his stable's only winner of the season at Uttoxeter in July last year but has been disqualified, forfeiting £3,000 in prize-money A trainer has had her only winner of the jumps season disqualified over a drug prescribed to the stable's dog. Friends Don't Ask won a 3m2f handicap chase at Uttoxeter in July last year, striking at odds of 16-1 under jockey Nick Scholfield. But the 10-year-old subsequently failed a post-race drug test when a urine sample detected traces of Firocoxib, sold as Previcox, a prescription-only non-steroidal medication prescribed in tablet form for the control of pain and inflammation associated with arthritis in animals. Firocoxib is a prohibited substance and should not be present in a horse's system when it runs in a race. It is a strict liability offence. Clare Ellam was referred to the British Horseracing Authority's independent disciplinary panel, agreeing to the case being heard under the Fast Track protocol. The panel heard that an investigation revealed that Firocoxib, in the form of Previcox tablets, had been prescribed to Ellam's stable dog 'Potch', who was allowed 'unfettered access" to the yard where Friends Don't Ask was stabled. Chair HH Clement Goldstone KC, concluded the most likely explanation for the ingestion of the drug into the horse's system was 'as a result of the dog having licked the side of the horse's feed bowl and/or having urinated on hay which had subsequently been eaten by the horse'. Although the drug can be prescribed for horses, the recommended dosage for dogs is significantly higher. It was accepted that Ellam had no knowledge that the horse had ingested the substance, but that there were significant failings at the yard, notably 'a degree of recklessness' by the trainer in allowing her dog unrestricted access to the yard. Taking into account Ellam's genuine remorse, her previous unblemished record as a trainer and her decision to curtail her dog's use of a drug which was clearly having a therapeutic effect to prevent a repeat, she was fined £1,500. Friends Don't Ask was disqualified and the first prize-money of £3,247.81 re-distributed accordingly.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
California judge approves landmark settlement for discharged LGBTQ+ veterans' discharge upgrades
A federal judge in California gave final approval earlier this month to the settlement of a class action lawsuit brought against the Department of Defense by former service members discharged because they were queer. The settlement will allow an estimated 35,000 service members to more easily upgrade their discharges, remove sexual orientation markers from their service records, and potentially obtain currently denied benefits. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. The settlement expedites multiple processes of importance to former LGBTQ+ service members. The Pentagon agreed to provide 'an expedited group Board review process for considering discharge upgrades for veterans given discharge characterizations of General Under Honorable Conditions or Other Than Honorable,' the settlement states. The settlement also calls for streamlining the removal process for 'markers of perceived or actual sexual orientation.' from a member's service record. 'This expedited process removes the considerable burden on veterans to first obtain their military records – a process that can take years – and then submit full petitions supported by evidence to the Board – another process that can take years,' the settlement noted. The suit was filed in August of 2023 by former service members Sherrill Farrell, James Gonzales, Steven Egland, Julianne ('Jules') Sohn, and Lilly Steffanides with the help of the Impact Fund, Legal Aid at Work, and King & Spaulding LLP. 'I believe that part of service is standing up for what is right. That is why I publicly spoke out against Don't Ask, Don't Tell, even though it led to my discharge from the Marine Corps,' Sohn said in a statement when the suit was first filed. 'And that is what I hope to do today by filing this lawsuit – standing up so that other LGBTQ+ veterans are afforded the full dignity and honor for their service and sacrifices for this country.' The suit moved slowly until the parties began to engage in 'contested arm's length settlement negotiations' in July of 2024. The weekly or bi-weekly videoconferences were described as 'productive but adversarial in nature.' The negotiations were given a boost after an 'all-day in-person settlement negotiation meeting' in Washington, D.C., in September of 2024 that was attended by counsel and subject matter experts. The following month, the parties reached an agreement on the general scope and key terms of the settlement and notified the court they anticipated a full agreement in December. The final agreement was signed and fully executed on January 3, 2025, just weeks before the incoming administration of Pres. Donald Trump took control of the Pentagon and its negotiations. In addition to the new policies, the Pentagon committed to a timeline that will implement the policies within four months.
