Latest news with #identityCrisis
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Move over Harry and Meghan: Britain's real royal family are now dominating the US headlines
So long, and thanks for all the jam. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and queen of Montecito, recently announced that she is reimagining As Ever, her raspberry spread and 'flower sprinkle' business. In an interview with Fast Company, which Meghan conducted in fluent buzzword, the actor and entrepreneur said she is thinking bigger than jarred goods and partnering with Netflix to bring forth a vision in which 'content and commerce meet, not in a product placement way, but rather in an ideological way'. (I think the ideology she is referencing here is capitalism). Meghan is now involved with so many different projects that she notes: 'If I had to write a résumé, I don't know what I would call myself.' It looks as though her husband, Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor, doesn't know what to call himself either. The big Harry news from recent days is that the Duke of Sussex had a moment where he considered changing his double-barrelled last name to 'Spencer', in a nod to his late mother and a middle finger to the rest of his family. While the Sussexes seem to be having something of an identity crisis, they are both still generating headlines. But not quite so many as they used to: Harry-and-Meghan-mania seems to have heavily subsided since Harry's big tell-all, Spare, came out in 2023. Which was only to be expected. We know all there is to know about Harry's frostbitten penis and drug habits; now only dull dregs of gossip remain. Meghan's Netflix show has been widely written off as 'boring'. The US media, at least, seem to be getting a little tired of the pair. As the Sussexes become old news, attention has been turning to Britain's other US-based royal family: the Beckhams. Or, more accurately, the Peltz Beckhams: Brooklyn Beckham (David and Victoria's eldest son) and Nicola Peltz (daughter of a US billionaire) combined their last names when they got married in 2022. 'Not many guys take their wives' names,' Brooklyn said at the time. 'So, I was just like, 'Why not?'' He also got about 70 tattoos in honour of Nicola, including the word 'married'. Explaining the inspiration for that tattoo, Brooklyn told USA Today: 'I kind of was just like, 'Oh, we're married, why not?'' Despite the fact that he now owns an artisanal hot sauce business (why not?), Brooklyn is one of the blandest people on the planet. So is his wife, Nicola, who is a film-maker and actor. (Wikipedia, in a savage move, says that she was cast in a role in The Last Airbender 'at the insistence of her father, who was a producer on the film'.) And yet the pair now seem to be absolutely everywhere and mired in controversy. On Tuesday they were the focus of a Glamour cover story that called them 'the world's most talked-about couple'. The talking isn't entirely complimentary: for months there has been rabid speculation about a feud between the Peltz Beckhams and the wider Beckhams. David and Victoria don't like Nicola! Victoria sabotaged Nicola's wedding! Brooklyn skipped all three of his dad's 50th birthday celebrations! Brooklyn is feuding with his younger brother Romeo because Romeo is dating Brooklyn's ex-girlfriend! And on it goes. I won't go through every bit of gossip, but there are striking parallels between the Peltz-Beckham drama and the Sussexes. You've got the American actor wife that the famous British family seems to have a problem with. You've got two brothers feuding. You've got misogynistic speculation that a dim but affable man is being 'controlled' by his ambitious wife. The parallels don't seem to have bypassed the foursome. Last month there were tabloid reports that the Peltz Beckhams had dinner with the Sussexes in Montecito, where they bonded over everything they had in common. 'Nicola and Meghan also had a bit of a 'deep'n'meaningful' as obviously both women have been positioned in the media as home-wreckers,' a source told the Sun. Over the weekend it was also reported that the Peltz Beckhams have now hired a British lawyer who had previously worked with the Sussexes to help with their 'reputation management'. While Brooklyn and Nicola seem keen to model themselves on the Sussexes, I rather think Harry should brand himself like Beckham. Can you imagine how wound up all the Harry-haters would be if he got 70 Meghan-related tattoos? Even better: if he's still keen on changing his name, he should forget Spencer and simply become Harry Markle. Far more modern of him than clinging on to his titles. As Brooklyn would say: why not? Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
New York Times
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Smart, Splendid New Historical Fiction
The Pretender John Collan is about to have an epic identity crisis. Wrenched out of his placid life in rural late-15th-century Oxfordshire, he's informed by his new, very secretive overlords that he's not a 10-year-old peasant but Edward, Earl of Warwick, nephew of King Richard, and thus in the line of succession to the English throne. But England is also undergoing a violent identity crisis as the Plantagenets skirmish among themselves and Henry Tudor schemes to take power. So John (temporarily renamed Lambert Simons) must remain in the shadows, where his long-dead father is said to have hidden him, lest he succumb to the dire fate of other potential heirs. Inspired by the historical figure known as Lambert Simnel, THE PRETENDER (Knopf, 471 pp., $30) is a rollicking account of a befuddled boy's pillar-to-post existence as a political pawn. After clandestine tutoring to provide him with a suitable education, he's whisked to Flanders to be further polished at the court of his supposed aunt, then abruptly shipped to Ireland, where the Earl of Kildare will ready him to be the figurehead of a rebel army. Faced with such a future, John/Lambert/Edward can only remind himself, 'a king wouldn't be trying not to cry.' Becoming a teenager is hard enough. But try becoming a teenager who hasn't the faintest idea who he really is and feels responsible for the murders of some of the few people he has come to trust. Longing simply to escape into anonymity, he's advised instead to 'get yourself a courtly countenance. Courtly claws, courtly teeth.' And so, in desperation, he does. Fifteen Wild Decembers What Emily Brontë calls 'the push-pull' of her turbulent family is the subject of Powell's suitably brooding FIFTEEN WILD DECEMBERS (Europa, 288 pp., paperback, $18). We first encounter Powell's imagined Emily in 1824 when she is sent to join her sisters at the boarding school that will later figure in Charlotte's novel, 'Jane Eyre.' But all 6-year-old Emily wants is to return to the Yorkshire moors that 'are as familiar to me as the features of my own siblings.' Narrating this account of her brief life, Emily provides a sharp perspective on the penury and isolation that created such anguish — and such inspiration — for the Brontë sisters. Tensions between them flare, as does frustration with their feckless brother, Branwell. Foremost, though, is Emily's yearning for the 'wild freedom' she knew as a child, a yearning that will color her novel, 'Wuthering Heights.' Sent to Brussels with Charlotte for more schooling, she chafes at the restrictions of polite society: 'I did not belong in this world and even if I could find the words to describe it, these people could never understand mine.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mariska Hargitay was 'living a lie' for 30 years
Mariska Hargitay spent 30 years "living a lie". The 61-year-old actress - whose mother, actress Jayne Mansfield, was killed in a car accident when she was a baby - was raised to believe the late Mickey Hargitay was her biological father but, after always feeling different from her siblings, she realised in her 20s that her dad was actually Italian entertainer Nelson Sardelli, who her mom had dated following a brief split from her spouse. Recalling how she was shown a photo of Nelson and immediately realised he was her dad, she said in new documentary 'My Mom Jayne': 'It was like the floor fell out from underneath me. "Like my infrastructure dissolved.' But when she confronted Mickey - who passed away in 2006 - he denied her suspicion and she never mentioned Nelson to him again. However, she went to see Nelson perform in Atlantic City when she was 30, and he cried when she introduced herself. He told her: 'I've been waiting 30 years for this moment.' But the 'Law and Order: SUV' star wanted to stay "loyal" to Mickey. She recalled: 'I went full Olivia Benson on him. I was like, 'I don't want anything, I don't need anything from you.… I have a dad.' 'There was something about loyalty. I wanted to be loyal to Mickey.' In the aftermath, Mariska struggled to cope with 'knowing I'm living a lie my entire life" and questioned whether she had been a wanted child or "illegitimate" mistake, and if she was Hungarian or Italian. The actress eventually bonded with Nelson and his daughters and began to understand Jayne had reconciled with Mickey because she knew he would offer them love and stability. She tearfully said: 'I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me,' she says. 'I'm Mickey Hargitay's daughter—that is not a lie. 'This documentary is kind of a love letter to him, because there's no one that I was closer to on this planet.' Mariska was keen to open up about her complex family background in the documentary as a way to "unburden all of us", and she had a private screening of the film with Nelson's daughters in Las Vegas. She said: 'They just wept and wept and wept. These two women that I love so much — I made them secrets! It's so heartbreaking to me.'
