Latest news with #SaschaBailey
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
'Hate club': Girlfriend of photographer David Bailey's son Sascha set to write tell-all memoir dishing the dirt on her time with Tommy Robinson and his fellow 'free speech activists'
Lucy Brown, who once stood shoulder to shoulder with far-Right activist Tommy Robinson, is getting ready to settle some old scores – and she's not pulling any punches. I can reveal that the girlfriend of art dealer Sascha Bailey, son of celebrated photographer David Bailey, is to publish an explosive memoir. 'I'm writing a book about my time working in free speech activism that will probably p*** everyone off – which is what I'm hoping it will do,' she tells me. Lucy has previously said that the behaviour of Robinson, who was jailed for 18 months last year for contempt of court, 'changed after the fame and money started rolling in'. She said the former English Defence League leader became 'very nasty and misogynistic'. Her memoir, working title Hate Club, promises a no-holds-barred account of the chaos among the so-called free-speech warriors she once worked alongside. They include Robinson, Milo Yiannopoulos – who ran rapper Kanye West 's US presidential campaign last year – Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, Sargon of Akkad, and Count Dankula. 'Everyone was a narcissist,' she adds. 'It was terrible. Those people are a mess.' Lucy, 34, says the book will draw on her experience organising the ill-fated Day for Freedom event in London in 2018, including never-before-seen footage she shot at the time. 'We tried to make it all free speech and punk and edgy and then it all blew up,' she recalls. Now pregnant with her first child with Sascha, Lucy takes a very different view on the cause she once championed. 'I hate free speech [absolutism] . . . it's just a stupid concept that flits and changes depending on whether you like the person,' she says. 'I don't think, for example, Kneecap should be able to say that you should kill your Tory MP on stage, considering what happened to [murdered Tory MP] David Amess, and I couldn't give a toss that they're getting cancelled.' Rather than trusting publishers to tell her story, she's opting to self-publish. A bad break for poor Benedict? The greatest mystery at the Cannes Film Festival was why Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch had to wear a sling on his left arm. The Hollywood actor, 48, sported a black sling that matched his dinner suit on the red carpet for the Sunday evening premiere of Wes Anderson's new comedy The Phoenician Scheme, which also stars Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks. He was joined by his wife, the theatre director Sophie Hunter, 47. And yesterday, Cumberbatch wore a patterned sling that matched his brown jacket at a photocall. His spokesman declines to comment on the injury. Age-old problem for Nicole, 57 Nicole Kidman, who received the Women In Motion Award at the Cannes Film Festival, says she faces a constant battle against ageism in the business. 'We get judged very harshly,' the Hollywood star, 57, tells me. 'You'll have a big film, then suddenly you're in your 40s and you haven't followed it up, or you've made some choices that didn't succeed. You're, like, 'But I'm not over. Please still keep investing in me.' That's important, resisting ageism. 'I've got a wealth of knowledge now and experience, yet I somehow have been cast out, or I'm not the cool person, or I'm not the one. So, it's always going, 'No, no, you can have a second to third chapter.' That's an important message.' Charlotte's not weedy... she rips them out fast TV presenter Charlotte Hawkins has a secret cure for the pressures of showbusiness. 'Whenever I get stressed, I take it out on the weeds in my garden,' she tells me at RHS Chelsea Flower Show's VIP preview. 'I know I give the appearance of being cool, calm and collected, but I do sometimes get wound up. It's therapy to me. I go outside and attack the weeds really aggressively.' Charlotte, who turned 50 on Friday, lives in Surrey with husband Mark and daughter Ella. Miriam's heartbreak over Stoppard affair When Miriam Stoppard was betrayed by her husband of 20 years, the celebrated playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, with actress Felicity Kendal, she was the model of quiet dignity. But now the doctor and journalist has revealed that her Oscar-winning husband's affair with The Good Life star plunged her into years of mourning. 'I never felt jealous, I never felt angry, but I did feel grief,' she tells Saga magazine. 'I grieved for three years, but I was grieving for the idea of how my life would be and who I would grow old with. And that was kind of chopped out of my life.' Kendal was married to American theatre director Michael Rudman when she began her affair with Sir Tom, whom she first met while starring in his West End play The Real Thing in 1982. Their relationship continued until 1998 when Kendal returned to her ex-husband, with whom she has a son, Jacob. On his controversial former TV show, Jeremy Kyle never hesitated to tackle family matters. Nor did his father, Patrick. Kyle, whose mother died in 2017, reveals on Mark Wogan's Spooning podcast that his father's dying wish in 2019 was to know if his son's then-fiancee, Victoria, was 'the One'. He told Kyle: 'When I get upstairs, and it won't be long, I'm going to get a massive telling-off from your mother because I have been chasing women around the care home for six years, so I need to give her some good news.' Jeremy married Victoria in 2021.
Telegraph
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘You become something unique': The A-list offspring coming out as trans
Even the keenest of celebrity watchers may not have heard of Aaron De Niro before late last month. If they have since, it will likely be by a different name, as Oscar-winner Robert De Niro's 29-year-old child says she now identifies as Airyn, a transgender woman. 'There's a difference between visible and being seen,' she told online LGBTQ+ online publication Them in April about her transition. 'I've been visible. [But] I don't think I've been seen yet.' De Niro, who has seven children in total, said he supported her decision. 'I loved and supported Aaron as my son and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter,' the A-lister said, adding: 'I don't know what the big deal is…I love all my children.' In Hollywood, at least, the news is unlikely to raise many eyebrows. Airyn is merely the latest in a long line of stars' children who have come out as trans or non-binary, including the offspring of Sting, Elon Musk, Cher, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver and Cynthia Nixon among others. The reasons for their decisions are, of course, deeply personal and complex. But some say the choices may also be linked to the particularly strange positions they inhabit as the progeny of the rich and famous. 'By becoming trans, you can break out of the predefined role you were born into and create a new space for yourself,' says Sascha Bailey, the son of legendary photographer David and his fourth wife, model Catherine. 'You become something unique and you are rewarded for it.' Sascha, 30, has experienced as much himself. Having struggled with depression and an unhappy marriage, he was on the verge of transitioning three years ago, intending to restart life as a transgender woman. But Sascha halted those plans when he fell in love again and embarked on a new relationship with a new female partner. He says the experience made him realise what he could lose – such as the chance to father a child himself – if he went ahead with taking female hormones as a prelude to eventual life-altering surgery. Sascha has written a book charting his own journey – Try to Hit the Pool: Modern Man and the Behavioural Sink, set to be published next month. In it, he explores the difficulty of growing up in the spotlight. 'I think, whatever you do in life, people are watching. If you go into the same profession as your parents, you are called a nepo baby, no matter how good you are. But if you work in Starbucks, people will take photos of you and ask, 'Why are they working in Starbucks?'' he says. 'It is [also] impossible to fully trust people as you never know what their actual motive in befriending you is,' Sascha adds. 'People will assume all sorts of things – like you have unlimited resources, because people equate fame with money. It can feel like people want to take something from you because you have something that they don't have. You are vulnerable, and it can feel hard to make real friends, to form bonds.' Charlotte Falconer, a former teacher and children's counsellor who runs counselling service LetMeListen says that coming out as trans can be a way of stepping out of the long shadow cast by a famous parent. 'The world of being a 'celebrity's child' will come with attention drawn away from them to their parents,' Falconer says. 'So, this type of gender expression may be coming from a place of need; a place that parents may not be aware of or able to meet. Creating a gender difference is often something that can't be ignored.' Others, including Sascha, say the children of stars may be afforded the space and time to reflect on their identities in a way that others are simply unable to, owing to financial and other pressures. 'When you are the child of a celebrity, you don't have much to strive for, to move towards, and this can feel like an easy way out because you are making an impact on the world. It can also mean that you have the funds to change yourself,' says Sascha. James Esses, a psychotherapist and the founder of campaigning group Just Therapy, says the children of celebrities have 'the luxury of time and money to indulge in a never-ending fixation on their self-identity', arguing the phenomenon is almost uniquely the preserve of the world's most privileged societies. 'There is a reason why swathes of children from war-torn regions or facing abject poverty are not coming out as 'trans',' he says. 'It's because they have more pressing issues to focus their time and attention on rather than their self-image and self-identity. 'And the children of celebrities, who have safety and security in abundance, they have the luxury of being able to engage in endless navel gazing.' The trend is not unique to celebrity culture, however, with up to 10,000 children across the UK thought to identify as transgender. Sarah* says her daughter came out as trans when she was 12 and quickly went from being the victim of bullies to being celebrated by her schoolmates. 'It reminded me of American high school movies where the nerdy girl gets a makeover and immediately becomes the prom queen and gets the boyfriend,' she says. Similarly, Sarah speculates that the children of famous parents may be looking to change their own standing. 'I imagine it is really hard to be the child of a celebrity and to get any attention yourself, as the parent is the focus of so much of it,' she says. Esses agrees. 'We know that 'coming out' as 'trans' is often met with celebration and positive reinforcement, and with celebrity culture, these things are on steroids,' he says. After coming out as transgender herself, Airyn De Niro posted a message on social media thanking 'everyone who's been so sweet and supportive', adding: 'I'm not used to all these eyes on me.' But the downside of positive reinforcement, some warn, is that it can make it difficult for those who have opted to transition to change their mind again and abandon doing so. That is as true for A-listers as it is for the rest of us. 'Many of the parents currently contacting us regret having affirmed their child as the opposite sex,' says a spokesperson for Bayswater, a support group for the parents of trans-identified adolescents and young people. 'What they tell us is that they thought changing a name and pronoun was harmless and never expected it to lead to requests for cross-sex hormones or surgery. Another theme we are increasingly seeing is desistance [when a child wants to revert], which is more complicated for a child whose parents have publicly taken a position on their child's identity.' Sascha says that when he announced he had changed his mind, 'the fallout was massive,' and some of his friends abandoned him. 'It is important that people should be able to change their mind – if they want to – without people attacking them,' he says. 'At first, I wasn't sure about speaking out, but then I started to get messages from parents and people who were transitioning and detransitioning saying that my story had made them reconsider things.' Ironically, his status as the child of a celebrity has given him something of a platform to try and make a difference. 'It is important for people to know there are options, whatever you want to do,' Sascha says.
