Latest news with #LorraineShow
Daily Record
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
ITV axes beloved breakfast show segment in new cost-cutting measures
ITV has been forced to make more major cuts in an attempt to manage costs and it is bad news for some huge breakfast stars. ITV's Andi Peters and Jeff Brazier will reportedly no longer be sent on lavish holidays abroad as the broadcaster have been forced to cut all their expenses-paid trips. Over the past year, the duo have been whisked off to a number of sun-soaked locations to front ITV competitions, appearing on programmes such as Good Morning Britain, Loose Women, This Morning and Lorraine. Andi's enviable locations have included the Maldives, Australia, Cape Town, and Florida while Jeff has been sent to Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malta. However, channel executives believe it's in "bad taste" to continue flying presenters to exotic destinations after announcing hundreds of devastating redundancies across ITV as part of their cost-saving measures. An insider told MailOnline: "ITV have scaled back on sending top talent overseas to present their competition segments. The competitions themselves, which give viewers the chance to win six figure sums and idyllic holidays, bring in a great deal of revenue, but constantly flying the likes of Andi and Jeff to the Maldives and South Africa was starting to frustrate staff and viewers alike." The source continued: "It was decided that they would dial down for a few weeks after the budget cuts were announced and no one has flown overseas to present the competitions since. "As well as there being a backlash online from disgruntled viewers, it was felt continuing to send talent abroad to luxurious holiday destinations as others are losing their jobs would be in bad taste." ITV's budget cuts were first announced last month, with a number of popular programmes taking a huge hit as the broadcaster battles a mounting financial crisis, the Express reports. The Lorraine Show will lose its long-standing hour-long slot from January 2026 , and will now air for just 30 minutes from 9:30am until 10am. The show, presented by Lorraine Kelly, has seen its airtime been slashed in half and the talk show has also been restricted to being broadcast just 30 weeks of the year. Fears have been circulating that the Scots presenter may quit her show, which has been running since 2010, as a result of the cuts. Lorraine received the news after returning to work following a surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes last year. The surgery was described as "preventative" and performed via keyhole surgery. As part of the shake-up, Good Morning Britain will have its current 6am to 9am slot extended until 9:30am. During the 22 weeks of the year that Lorraine will now be off-air, Good Morning Britain's airtime has been extended until 10am, adding an extra hour to its original schedule. Meanwhile, This Morning will still air from 10:30am to 12:30pm but another show which is being scaled back is Loose Women. The popular ITV daytime programme will now also air on a seasonal basis for just 30 weeks a year. According to MailOnline, Loose Women is set to scrap their live audience due to the ongoing budget cuts.
The Sun
29-05-2025
- General
- The Sun
My ‘Grim Reaper' stalker bragged he was so close he could SMELL me… but cops wouldn't tell me who he was for sick reason
IT began when Coronation Street actress Nicola Thorp received an unsolicited 'd**k pic' on Twitter. Over two fraught years, the broadcaster and activist was then hounded by a faceless stalker who styled himself as her 'Grim Reaper'. 11 Adopting 27 different online aliases, the unhinged obsessive threatened to kill and rape her. The stranger even bragged that he'd been so close to the actress on a train that he could 'smell' her. Yet, despite the stalker then being arrested, police refused to tell Nicola who he was, leaving her feeling 'scared' and 'paranoid'. Sipping water as she relived the ordeal, Nicola told The Sun in an exclusive interview: 'I felt powerless because the police wouldn't tell me who he was. 'That's when I got really scared because he knew I'd reported him.' The police refused to tell Nicola her stalker's name over concerns for HIS privacy. 'I remember my jaw just hitting the floor,' she said. ''You can't tell me exactly who he is. Do I know him? Is he an ex-partner? Is he a colleague?' ''Is he my partner who I live with?' Obviously, I knew it wasn't. But they wouldn't tell me either way. And that's when I felt a real sense of injustice.' Now a presenter on ITV 's Lorraine show, the 35-year-old mum became increasingly worried for her safety as her stalker now realised she had reported him to cops. 'Until he was arrested, he didn't know I was after him,' the former TalkTV host added. 'He just thought that I was the one being chased. I'm the one being stalked. I'm the one who's vulnerable and doesn't have any power. Corrie star reveals she's married famous actor boyfriend after welcoming first child 'But the moment at which he got arrested, the power shifts. Then suddenly, he's the one who's being chased. 'And the point at which an abuser loses their sense of power over a victim can see them escalate their behaviour.' How could the actress protect herself against a menacing individual if she didn't know who he was? Officers declined to name the stalker because it would have breached his right to anonymity under data protection and privacy laws. But while Nicola was in the public eye and able to speak out, other women in the same predicament weren't being heard. Stalker frenzy 11 In 2023, 1.5million British women were victims of stalking in the UK. Other high-profile women who have been plagued by a stalker include Holly Willoughby, The Crown actress Claire Foy and journalist Emily Maitlis. Now the Government has pledged to alter the ludicrous situation, which seemed to give more rights to stalkers than their victims. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the new rules as ' Nicola's Law ' in tribute to the actress's emotionally-wrought campaigning. The presenter has always campaigned for women's rights alongside her TV career. Born into a Blackpool family who've owned the seaside rock factory there since 1962, she always wanted a career in the news media. 'I'm the only member of my family who doesn't work in the rock factory,' she explained. 'I went to drama school in London because being a girl from a northern town, you think that's the only way to get into the media.' Nicola's first brush with fame wasn't on stage or screen, though. In 2015 she made headlines after refusing to wear high heels while working on reception at a top accountancy firm as a temp while a jobbing actress. Told to wear a '2in to 4in heel' rather than the smart flat shoes she had worn to the London office, she declined and was sent home without pay. "I was expected to do a nine-hour shift on my feet escorting clients to meeting rooms. I said, 'I just won't be able to do that in heels', ' she explained. She started a Facebook petition calling for a change in the law, which garnered 150,000 signatures in 48 hours, forcing a debate in Parliament. It led to the temp agency promising to review their guidelines and sparked a campaigning zeal in Nicola, which continues to this day. Unrelated to her media exposure following the petition, she passed a second screen test to join the cast of Coronation Street. In June 2017, she made her debut in the soap as social worker Nicola Rubinstein, the estranged daughter of Pat Phelan, played by Connor McIntyre. A year later she opened her Twitter account to discover 'an unsolicited photo of a penis' from a stranger. The mum said: 'Unfortunately, it's all too common for women in the public eye or, indeed, any woman, to get this sort of thing.' Nicola screenshotted the image, blurred it, and reposted it and asked people to report the man. 'His account was closed down,' she recalled. 'So I just put it to the back of my mind and thought, 'Problem solved'.' But over the next two years, she received a flood of abusive messages on Twitter - now called X - and Instagram, from different people. 'They ranged from being sexually explicit, to sexual violence, non-sexual violence, threats to me and my family," she says. 'I was speaking at the time about feminism, the MeToo movement. I thought there might be some men out there who didn't like that and wanted to tell me.' Then, after 18 months of being bombarded with messages, Nicola began to notice a pattern: 'Some of the spelling mistakes in the messages were quite similar. 'There was one profile that used a photograph of me and pretended to be me. "It showed an obsession that I hadn't quite seen from other hateful messages that I'd got from people. 'And I started to twig that the posts could be the same individual.' In one post the stalker told Nicola that she "was to be put in a headlock and forced into sexual acts and wanted to make my parents watch'. The online stalking wasn't constant. There'd be a surge of messages and then nothing for months. 'I remember one in particular saying, 'I'm your Grim Reaper. I'm never going to leave you'," she revealed. "And that really chilled me.' Sickening messages At the time she was living alone on a houseboat in London. She armed herself with anti-attack spray and an air horn, and fitted new locks. 'To this day, I don't know if I was being stalked in real life,' she recalls. 'There were messages that he sent saying that he was following me on the Tube and had got close enough to smell me. 'He also sent me messages that included details about my home and some of my activities around my home. 'And they were vague enough that they could have been an educated guess, but they were detailed enough that it made me really concerned.' The sinister messages continued. Nicola added: 'He sent me a photograph of a girl walking down an alleyway and said, 'I'm going to assault her because that's what women deserve'. 'And he also sent a message saying, 'All women deserve to be on their knees in service of men'. 'It wasn't just about me, it was all women. And that's when I decided to do something about it.' 'Sense of power' 11 11 In 2020, she handed police an 89-page dossier of the revolting messages she'd received. Officers told her that there was nothing they could do unless Twitter and Meta, owners of Instagram, cooperated. More than a year passed before cops received the information they needed. The accounts all linked back to the same IP address. Police arrested Ravinderjit Dhillon, 31, at his home in Feltham, west London. They were able to identify the inside of his bedroom from the background in the "d**k pic" he'd first sent. It was now that Nicola felt most vulnerable as Dhillon knew she'd made a complaint against him. The broadcaster didn't find out her stalker's name until his first court appearance in February 2022. The first time she clapped eyes on him was when she was queuing to go through security at Uxbridge Magistrates' and a guard read out his name. What to do if you suspect you're being stalked Tony Neate, CEO of Get Safe Online, tells Sun Online: 'The perpetrators commonly obtain details about you via online information of personal and financial affairs, social and work life, relationships and your location. As a starting point, ensure only the minimum information about you is available online and take stalking seriously. Report it before it has serious effects on you and others and keep a record of all that takes place so you collate evidence whilst it is happening. For expert advice visit Get Safe Online." 'I sat in a waiting room for half an hour with a guy who's stalked me for going on three years," she said. 'I felt a sense of power because he couldn't look me in the eye. I wasn't scared anymore. I just saw a very lonely, troubled person.' Dhillon was jailed for 30 months and Nicola was granted a lifetime restraining order against him. Afterwards, she worked alongside Home Office minister Jess Phillips to secure the right for victims to know their stalker's identity. Married to Nitesh Patel, 35, who starred in BBC romcom Starstruck, Nicola gave birth to a daughter last year. The broadcaster, who will recount her experience at CrimeCon - a true crime conference - reveals she refused to be driven off social media by her stalking ordeal. 'Nothing will stop me from living my online life,' she added. 'It's not on women to change their behaviour. It's on perpetrators to stop their abuse.' 11
Daily Mirror
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Lorraine Kelly reveals life-changing impact of ovary removal on TV return
Lorraine Kelly has made a sad admission on her TV return after revealing she's had her ovaries removed in a preventative procedure. The Scottish star, 65, has been absent from her show after having the surgery and revealed how she was feeling as she returned to our screens today. Appearing on Good Morning Britain before the Lorraine Show, Lorraine, who had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in a preventative procedure after undergoing a series of tests and scans following a burst cyst in January, said: "It's gone! I have to take tiny amounts of testosterone." She added that it was a 'teeny tiny' amount and she has to do it to 'balance it out'. The much-loved star, who was in hospital for the night and who had two weeks of recovery, posted a photo of herself and granddaughter Billie at a private clinic on Thursday, as she penned: "I had my check up l today and the fabulous @ahmed_raafat_gynaecologist_ says I can go back to work on Monday - as long as I take it easy. "Billie obviously loved him. Huge thanks to Mr Rafaat and his top team who've chosen to work here and help us - from countries like Croatia, Nepal and all over Europe, Africa and the Caribbean - what on earth would we do without you." Unfortunately, Lorraine can't pick up Billie while she recovers as she told Susanna Reid on GMB this morning: "I've just got to take it easy. The only thing I can't do, which is so frustrating, I can't hold Billie; I can't lift her up." Explaining more about her surgery, she said: "I had a burst cyst coming back from India in January,' she said. 'I got a scan and found out that on the other cyst, there was something suspicious. To be safe, and to prevent anything awful happening, whipped it out." She added: "I had keyhole surgery; I've got three new holes to whip out the ovaries and the fallopian tubes. Nothing sinister, it's all good!' Later on her programme, Lorraine was joined live on air by her programme's resident GP, Dr. Hilary Jones, as she talked about her operation in a bid to raise awareness. She praised the medical staff for looking after her "so, so well", saying she now has "peace of mind". She said: "I've had it (general anaesthetic) before, and I was absolutely fine. I only stayed in for one night and was so well looked after. I couldn't have asked for better care."
