Latest news with #dolls
The Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
I've spent £20k on 24 doll babies – I spend hours a day playing with them, my boyfriend thinks it's odd but I want more
When it comes to babies, I definitely have my hands full. Right now, Louisa is in her baby seat and Albee and Harmony are sleeping in their cots. Zadie and Zelda are in the living room, while their big sisters Pieta, four, and Daida, two, are relaxing on their chairs. 4 Meanwhile I'm walking in circles in my living room, soothing Ozzie in my arms. In total I have 24 babies, but my house in Lake City, South Carolina, is peaceful and quiet and my beautiful children never get a day older. That's because I'm a 'reborn mummy'. As a child, I loved stuffed animals and My Little Pony, but I didn't really play with dolls. Then, in October 2022, when I was 39, I was shopping for Halloween decorations when I spotted a zombie doll called Ruby. 'Reborn mummy' I was so excited to bring her home and couldn't bear to box her away when the holiday was over. Suddenly, I had a reason to buy cute baby clothes I'd seen while out shopping. It was such fun to dress Ruby that I started to Google other dolls I might buy. That's the first time I read about reborns, which are hyper-realistic, life-sized baby dolls. They're works of art, sculpted and hand-painted to look just like real babies. I was blown away. Inspired by Ruby, I wanted to pick something a little different. In March 2023, I saw a reborn with two faces, painted to look like clowns. I fell in love instantly and called them Penny and Dima. Ozzie came next, and after I'd removed the nappy that is always placed over the doll's face by sellers to protect their delicate features, it was so exciting to unwrap him from his box and see his gorgeous face emerge. I've spent £350 on a reborn doll to battle my empty nest - my hubby is 'weirded out' by it but it's been life-changing By April, Albee had arrived, quickly followed by Zadie and Zelda. I never do things by halves. Within months I had three more – Daida, my gorgeous two year old, who is 81cm tall, tiny baby Harmony and Burgundy Rose, a reborn baby werewolf. It made me so happy to see them in my house. I even bought a baby car seat and took Ozzie to work with me. My shift patterns meant I had a room at work to sleep in that I shared with a colleague. I know it's a hobby many people don't understand – men in particular find it strange She walked in one day to see Ozzie on the bed and was shocked, thinking I'd left a real baby in there alone! Another colleague gave me an outfit for Pieta, my 101cm-tall four year old, that his daughter had grown out of. They never made me feel that it was weird to have the dolls, and, like my friends and family, they always want to hear about my new arrivals. But I know it's a hobby many people don't understand – men in particular find it strange. That's why I put a photo of me holding a reborn on my Facebook dating profile in November 2024. They're a huge part of my life – I can spend hours a day playing with them – and that isn't going to change. I've since met my boyfriend and he accepts it, but finds it odd. The other day we were sitting on the sofa watching TV as I held Ozzie. As I got up to get a drink, I handed him Ozzie, but he looked at me like I'd grown an extra head! 4 4 When I take the babies out in public, I get all kinds of reactions. Most people just think they're real, but when I explain they're reborns, I get everything from confusion and intrigued questions, to shock and fear. To me, they have their own personalities. Melitina and Burgundy Rose are energetic and cheeky, Daida is sweet and kind and Ozzie is peaceful. Unlike real children, they're all clean and quiet. They don't make a mess or damage things And, unlike real children, they're all clean and quiet. They don't make a mess or damage things. They're only there to make me feel happy. I love to share our life on my YouTube channel. I might take them for walks, 'feed' them with a real baby bottle filled with fake formula, dress them up for Valentine's Day or just cuddle them. Trolls have made comments, but they don't bother me. I think part of what upsets people is how much they cost. So far, I've spent £20,000, with Pieta and Daida costing £1,500 and £2,300 each. I've also made lots of friends with other reborn mums online. I can't wait to keep welcoming reborns into my life. If anyone thinks that's a waste of money, I don't care. I work hard and my dolls bring me a lot of joy. What could possibly be wrong with that?'
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
China Tariffs Already Mean Fewer, More Expensive Dolls for American Kids
Carly has auburn hair, blue eyes and stands 18 inches tall. Like most dolls sold in the U.S., she is made in China. That is now a problem for her maker, William Su, who sells tens of thousands of dolls and their accessories a year to Americans through Amazon, Walmart and Target. When President Trump raised tariffs on China to 145% in April, Su, who is based in New York and Taiwan, stopped production because he and his buyers couldn't afford the tariffs.
The Sun
19-05-2025
- The Sun
Bodysnatcher who dressed mummified remains of 29 girls as dolls to stay locked up after plea from psychiatric doc
A SICK bodysnatcher who dressed up mummified remains of 29 girls as dolls will remain locked up in a psychiatric hospital, a Russian court has ruled. Anatoly Moskvin, 55, turned the dead children into 'dolls', dressing them in stockings, clothes and knee-length boots. 7 7 He was first arrested in 2011 when a series of desecrated graves of girls aged three to 11 led to a months-long manhunt across Novgorod, Russia. When cops searched the flat Moskvin shared with his parents, they discovered the bodies of 29 girls. Each had been mummified, dressed in children's clothes, and arranged like dolls in his home. The former academic claimed that he practised black magic and believed he could one day revive the children using science. Moskvin, now 58, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was ruled unfit to stand trial in 2012. He has been held in a secure Russian psychiatric unit ever since. Despite several pleas made by Moskvin's lawyers, a Russian court has now confirmed that the sick man would remain under forced detention. His term was extended after the chief physician of the psychiatric hospital filed a petition against his release - possibly due to his behaviour. Moskvin confessed to 44 counts of abusing the graves of girls aged three to 12. In Soviet times, he worked as a translator for military intelligence in the Red Army, and later wrote several history books. Horror moment sisters are found chained to their beds where 'Brazil's Fritzl' dad 'drugged & raped them for a year' The historian, described in court as a genius and the author of scientific papers, gave various explanations for his deeply disturbing behaviour. Moskvin told his interrogators he was waiting for science to find ways for these girls to live again, as well as wanting to be an expert in making mummies. He chillingly said to the family members of the dead children: "You abandoned your girls in the cold, and I brought them home and warmed them up." Moskvin added that he had needed biological material for cloning and insisted his actions were not for any sexual motive. He told investigators: "I felt sorry for the dead children, who could still live on. "So I kept them until the time when science would have advanced, and revived them." 7 7 7 His mother Elvira told the court: "We saw these dolls, but we did not suspect there were dead bodies inside. We thought it was his hobby to make such big dolls and did not see anything wrong with it.' Parents of the dead children have pleaded he remain locked up for life, fearing he'll return to his sinister old habit, which saw him living with some children's remains for up to ten years. In the early years after his arrest, he frequently gave interviews and made bizarre confessions, including that he had slept in Muslim graveyards and visited more than 750 cemeteries. He claimed: "I lay down in one coffin, and slid another one on top. And I got a good night's sleep. And no one noticed." In 2021, his lawyers tried to argue that he should be transferred to outpatient care and had plans to write a book and work as a language teacher in Moscow. But the court rejected the plea, as it did again last week. The court sided with the hospital that he remain under psychiatric supervision in detention until November.
Wall Street Journal
15-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Tariffs and the Truth Behind Trump's ‘Two Dolls' Gaffe
Three. That, apparently, is the minimum number of dolls American parents expect to be able to buy for their children. The conclusion emerges from a revealing week in U.S. economics—more revealing than many realize. Not only did President Trump blink in his tariff war with China; Republicans in the House delivered their own initial assessment of what sort of economy voters actually want. The short version: an economy with more dolls.
The Independent
12-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
John Oliver trashes Trump's ‘creepy' comments on girls and dolls: ‘Makes my skin want to turn inside out'
Late-night host John Oliver skewered Donald Trump for his repeated remarks about the number of dolls 'beautiful baby girls' can have amid the president's 'stupid trade war,' mocking Trump for the 'creepy' and 'very weird' way he talks about female children. Prior to pressing a 90-day pause button on his exorbitant tariffs against China, the president spent the past week shrugging off the effect the import taxes would have on the price of goods in the United States. Specifically, he said that kids would just have to deal with fewer dolls and pencils. 'Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,' Trump said at one point. 'What a very weird thing to say,' Oliver said during Sunday's broadcast of Last Week Tonight. 'It's just another snapshot in the chaos album that is Trump having anything to do with children, because you can now put 'kids will have two dolls instead of 30' right up there with the lawnboy scream and that time he asked a kid if she believed in Santa Claus because, quote, 'At seven, it's marginal, right?'' The HBO host then pointed out that this wasn't the extent of the president's ramblings on dolls, as he flagged the president saying a few days later that he doesn't 'think a beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls' and that three or four would suffice. 'OK, there is so much there. 'A beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old'? Don't call an 11-year-old that. First, it's creepy. And second, I promise, you call an 11-year-old girl a baby, she'll f*cking kill you,' Oliver reacted. 'To think the prime age for playing with dolls is 11 is almost impressively wrong,' he continued. 'Everyone knows the breakdown of what people play with by age goes: blocks from ages one to three, dolls from ages three to seven, and our phones from ages eight until we die.' Of course, Trump didn't stop there. During a flight on Air Force One, the president once again waxed poetic about the subject, claiming that 'a 10-year-old girl, a nine-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl, doesn't need 37 dolls' and that she should be happy with four or five. 'Every single way this man refers to girls makes my skin want to turn inside out,' the Last Week Tonight host declared with revulsion. 'That said, I did also want to see him keep going there, just to see how many variations of ages and numbers he could cycle through.' After mockingly impersonating the president trying to figure out the correct number of dolls by linking them to movies and Christmas hymns, Oliver then brought up a notorious figure from Trump's past. 'Has he ever met a 15-year-old girl? That's a dumb question. Of course he has. He was friends with Jeffrey Epstein,' Oliver snarked. In the end, the political comedian joked that with the president seemingly going to war with the doll industry, sticks were primed to 'make a comeback' amid the president's on-again/off-again tariffs. 'Throw it, catch it, set it on fire. Just look at it,' he concluded. 'The stick's the only toy you'll ever need, which is lucky because it's also the only one you'll ever have.'
