Bill Hader has shared his joy at discovering he is related to Carol Burnett.

The 44-year-old actor – who has daughters Hannah, 13, Harper, 10 and eight-year-old Hayley with his ex-wife Maggie Carey, and is said to be back together with his ex-girlfriend Ali Wong, 40 – received an email from the comedienne letting him know they are distant cousins and immediately told his children they are related to Miss Hannigan, the tyrannical orphanage proprietress Carol played in the 1982 movie adaptation of Broadway musical ‘Annie.’

Bill told ‘Entertainment Tonight’: “She emailed me. Yeah, she emailed me and said, ‘Hey, we’re related.’ And I went, ‘What?’ I told my, kids! I’m like, ‘We’re all related to Ms. Hannigan. So it was really fun!”

The ‘Saturday Night Live’ star added he has remained in touch with Carol, 89, by text and email but is hoping they can meet soon for dinner.

He added: “We’ve been texting and emailing and stuff, so it’s been really exciting. I hope I can, like, have dinner with her.”

Bill has played the title role of hitman ‘Barry’ in the HBO sitcom for almost five years, but now the show is coming to an end after four seasons, he is “very happy” to be saying goodbye to the character even if it means bidding farewell to the cast and crew.

He added: “It’s nice to write, you know, ‘The End’ on the thing, but it’s it’s going to be sad to say bye to everybody. That’s the hardest part of it. I’m very happy to not have to play this guy anymore. He’s a very dark character, so I’m happy that that’s kind of over with… I’m going to do something very light now.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber was “sad” to see ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ end its Broadway run after 35 years.

The 75-year-old legendary composer has reflected on his long running musical coming to an end over the weekend with one last show at the Majestic Theatre on Sunday. (16.04.23)

The next night, he told ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’: “Well, it was strange really, because, you know, one of the funny things that’s happened with ‘Phantom’ is that over the last few years… well, few months really, a young audience found it.

“And it’s, I don’t know, it was sad last night because I just felt it could run on. But there you go.”

The musical theatre icon admitted it is “very unusual” for all the stars to align perfectly for a production.

He added: “Like the production, the whole thing meshes, it’s just one of those moments.

“I mean, it happened with ‘The Lion King’, it’s happened with ‘Hamilton’, it’s happened with me with ‘Phantom’. It doesn’t happen very often.”

While speaking to Andrew, chat show host Jimmy noted the play’s 13,981 performances make it the longest running show in Broadway history, and it has also been the largest generator of jobs in come for both Broadway and US theatres as a whole.

Meanwhile, the composer had dedicated the final performance to his late son Nicholas, who died of gastric cancer last month aged 43.

Amid a standing ovation, he said: “I hope you won’t mind if I dedicate this performance to my son, Nick.”

Turning to the musical’s original star, his ex-wife Sarah Brightman, he continued: “When Nick was a little boy, he heard some of this music.”

Sarah agreed: “Yes, he did. When Andrew was writing it, he was right there. So his soul is with us. Nick, we love you very much.”

After the show, Andrew teased it is possible the music could return to Broadway one day in the future, particularly after its recent box office boom.

He said: “Thank you to absolutely everyone who has made this extraordinary run possible… It is just amazing really what has happened, and in the last few months I don’t think any of us thought that ‘Phantom’ would go out quite with the bang it has.

“So it may come back, you never know.”

Sir Elton John wants to celebrate his retirement by holidaying in the Antarctic.

The ‘Rocket Man’ singer, 76, is on the last stretch of his ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ tour, which will wrap up in the UK at Glastonbury on 25 June before a final gig in Sweden on 8 July, and his husband David Furnish, 60, said he wants to join him and their children Zachary, 12, and Elijah, 10, on an icy trip.

David said in a chat with ‘Your Money Map’: “There are places I’d like to travel and take the boys. I have a real fascination and love of India… and our sons both want to go to the Antarctic, and Elton wants to go as well.

“I have no idea how to get there. Or what you do when you get there. But it’s something that we can all do together, which is great.”

David added about their retirement plans Elton wants to take their kids to see his beloved Watford football team play “as long as they win”, and says their eldest boy has other travels plans for them.

He said: “(Zachary) has turned into a real fishing aficionado and he has already gone online and identified the best fishing places in the world.

“He wants to go to Costa Rica, Hawaii and salmon fishing in the north of Scotland.”

Elton earlier this month paid an emotional tribute to his fans as he nears the end of his final tour in Britain.

He as playing to a sellout 20,000 crowd at the O2 Arena in London when he said his lifelong songwriting partner Bernie Taupin was there and while pointing to a fan waving a banner that said she had been to more than 100 of his gigs, said: “I wanted to thank you all for the support which you have shown me throughout my career. It means so much.”

Sir Elton John will be a “really important archivist” in the future, Russell Tovey believes.

The ‘History Boys’ actor has interviewed a host of famous faces for ‘Talk Art’, the podcast he co-hosts with gallerist Rob Diament and he was impressed to learn the ‘Tiny Dancer’ singer is an avid collector of newsworthy photographs.

He told The Times’ Weekend magazine: “It’s all just under the surface with a lot of people. Pierce Brosnan was an artist before he was an actor, and paints to relieve trauma, while Elton is very quietly building up a really important collection of photographs.

“If he sees a news photo from Ukraine he’ll contact the photographer and buy it and archive it — he’s going to be a really important [archivist] in the future.”

Despite his own love of art, the 41-year-old star admitted his own talents are lacking.

He said: “I once got my camera out and took some photos of my underwear lying on a radiator like Wolfgang Tillmans [German photographer noted for his everyday reportage] and they were just s***. So, I’m just an admirer.”

The former ‘Quantico’ actor – who is in a relationship with architect Steve Brockman – admitted his passion for buying new works has become an “addiction” and he views his acting jobs as a means of acquiring more art.

He confessed: “But it’s still like an addiction. I literally cannot stop collecting — there should be Art Anon, where people can get help. Luckily it’s considered a respectable addiction, though.

“I wanted our home to look like the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition — every inch of wall covered. But that’s not really practical, is it? But I do look at [acting] jobs and think: how many pieces can I buy if I do that?”

Starbase (United States) (AFP) – A frozen valve forced a postponement on Monday of the first test flight of SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Liftoff of the gigantic rocket was called off less than 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled launch because of a pressurization issue in the first-stage booster, SpaceX said.

The private space company continued with the countdown in what it called a “wet dress rehearsal,” stopping the clock with 10 seconds to go, just before the massive engines on the booster were to have been ignited.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said a frozen pressure valve forced a scrub of the launch, which had been planned for 8:20 am Central Time (1320 GMT) from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.

“Learned a lot today, now offloading propellant, retrying in a few day,” Musk tweeted.

SpaceX said the inaugural flight would be delayed for at least 48 hours to recycle the liquid methane and liquid oxygen that fuels the rocket.

The US space agency NASA has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 — a mission known as Artemis III — for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

Starship consists of a 164-foot (50-meter) tall spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo that sits atop a 230-foot tall first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.

SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 Raptor engines on the first-stage booster in February but the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket have never flown together.

The integrated test flight is intended to assess their performance in combination.

Musk had warned ahead of the launch that a delay was likely.

“It’s a very risky flight,” he said earlier. “It’s the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket. 

“There’s a million ways this rocket could fail,” Musk said. “We’re going to be very careful and if we see anything that gives us concern, we’ll postpone.”

‘Multi-planet species’

NASA will take astronauts to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using its own heavy rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.

Starship is both bigger and more powerful than SLS and capable of lifting a payload of more than 100 metric tonnes into orbit.

It generates 17 million pounds of thrust, more than twice that of the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon.

The plan for the integrated test flight is for the Super Heavy booster to separate from Starship about three minutes after launch and splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Starship, which has six engines of its own, will continue to an altitude of nearly 150 miles, completing a near-circle of the Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 90 minutes after launch.

“If it gets to orbit, that’s a massive success,” Musk said.

“If we get far enough away from the launchpad before something goes wrong then I think I would consider that to be a success,” he said. “Just don’t blow up the launchpad.”

SpaceX foresees eventually putting a Starship into orbit, and then refueling it with another Starship so it can continue on a journey to Mars or beyond.

Musk said the goal is to make Starship reusable and bring down the price to a few million dollars per flight.

“In the long run — long run meaning, I don’t know, two or three years — we should achieve full and rapid reusability,” he said.

The eventual objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and put humans on the “path to being a multi-planet civilization,” Musk said.

“We are at this brief moment in civilization where it is possible to become a multi-planet species,” he said. “That’s our goal. I think we’ve got a chance.”

German carmaker Mercedes has presented an all-electric version of its luxury brand Maybach for the first time.

Group CEO Ola Källenius unveiled the vehicle at the world premiere in Shanghai on Monday.

“The Mercedes Maybach EQS SUV unites our ambition to lead in digital and electric with our focus on the luxury segment,” Källenius said.

The international auto show in Shanghai begins on Tuesday. China is the largest car market in the world and therefore of great importance for Mercedes and the other German manufacturers.

In the first quarter of 2023 the Stuttgart-based company said it had sold 191,000 vehicles in the People’s Republic, an increase in sales of 3% compared to the previous year.

Tony Hadley will never reveal “exactly why” he quit Spandau Ballet.

The 62-year-old ‘Gold’ singer sensationally walked away from the New Romantic group in 2017, saying after a royalties bust-up in a brief Twitter statement he was no longer a member, and has now revealed the group’s behaviour wasn’t “that of friends”.

But insisting he will never go into detail about the full reasons behind the bitter split, he told The Observer: “Walking away from Spandau in 2017 was tough, but I had no choice.

“The band’s behaviour wasn’t that of friends – I couldn’t do it any longer.

“I’ll never say exactly why. It’s on to them to be honourable and step forward to set out what they did. To take responsibility for their actions.”

Spandau Ballet decided to take a break in 1990 so the bandmates could pursue solo projects but it turned into a full split when Tony, drummer John Keeble, 63, and saxophonist Steve Norman, 63, unsuccessfully sued guitarist Gary Kemp, also 63 – the brother of 61-year-old bassist Martin Kemp – in a royalties row.

Despite his bitterness over the break-up Tony also has fond memories of his time with the band.

He reminisced: “Our first appearance on ‘Top of the Pops’ still feels like a dream.

“My God, it was so exciting. I’d worked day jobs right up until signing our record deal.”

He went on about how he got the music bug: “At Pontins, aged 14, I discovered music. I got on stage and sang ‘Lady Madonna’. I decided it would be my future.

“I met Frank Sinatra at the Royal Albert Hall when I was 17. I’d snuck backstage and was being pushed aside by security when he asked my story.

“He shook my hand and wished me luck. Six years later, Spandau Ballet headlined the same venue.”

Lionel Richie admits it was a “surprise” that Britain’s King Charles chose him to perform at his Coronation Concert.

The 73-year-old singer – who became the first global ambassador of The Prince’s Trust in 2019 – is among the star-studded line-up along with the likes of Katy Perry and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, 64, who will duet with 57-year-old Welsh opera icon Sir Bryn Terfel.

And the ‘Hello’ hitmaker couldn’t believe it when he found out the monarch wanted him to perform for him, of all the “names” he could have chosen.

He told People: “I mean, you don’t get in the business and say, ‘You know what? I’ll be at the King’s coronation.’ You know, that just never comes up.

“[It’s] A, a surprise. B, what an honour. And C, the fact of all the names that are out there that he could have had for this, he called my name.”

He continued: “I really do celebrate his now stepping into the king role.”

The ‘All Night Long’ hitmaker expects there to be more “pomp and circumstance” than a concert by The King of Pop, the late Michael Jackson, or The Queen of Pop, Madonna.

Lionel added: “I want to see the pomp and circumstance because I don’t care what you thought Michael Jackson did. I don’t care what you thought Prince did. I don’t care what you thought Madonna did. Nothing’s going to be like this. This is the grandiose of grandiose right here.”

The concert will be held in the grounds of Windsor Castle a day after Charles, 74, is crowned along with his wife Queen Consort Camilla, 75, at Westminster Abbey on May 6.

Charles’ concert will also include soul pianist Alexis Ffrench, 53, and 28-year-old singer-songwriter Freya Ridings.

The headliners were revealed after it emerged Lionel had signed up, along with Take That’s Gary Barlow, 52, Howard Donald, 54, and 51-year-old Mark Owen.

They will be backed by musicians including a 70-piece orchestra, and the Massed Bands of the Household Division and Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra – with a 300-strong Coronation Choir also lined up to feature in the show.

It comes less than a year after the concert to mark the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, which included music by Queen, Duran Duran and Diana Ross.

Washington (AFP) – When the iconic US diaper company Huggies was swamped with false pedophilia allegations last month, the conspiracy was traced to a once-banned influencer reinstated to Twitter by Elon Musk. 

The Tesla tycoon bitterly denies that misinformation has surged since his turbulent $44 billion acquisition of the messaging platform, but experts say content moderation has been gutted after mass layoffs, while a paid verification system has served to boost conspiracy theorists.

Adding to the turmoil, the self-proclaimed free speech absolutist has restored what one researcher estimates are over 67,000 accounts that were once suspended for a myriad of violations, including the incitement of violence, harassment and misinformation.

Among those reinstated is Vincent Kennedy, a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy movement who was banned from Twitter after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Kennedy, according to the advocacy group Media Matters, launched a conspiracy theory in late March that left the Huggies diaper brand fighting off extraordinary pedophilia accusations.

He posted a picture of a Disney-themed diaper featuring Simba, a character from “The Lion King,” and circled triangles and spiral swirls that were part of the design.

This was to illustrate a widely debunked conspiracy theory that the shapes are recognized by the FBI as coded signals used by pedophiles. “Once you truly awake you ain’t going back to sleep,” Kennedy wrote in the tweet that garnered millions of views.

The conspiracy theory spread like wildfire to other platforms like TikTok. Huggies, which is owned by Kleenex-owner Kimberly-Clark, then faced an avalanche of hate messages and calls for a boycott.

Huggies sought to douse the flames, writing in a direct response to Kennedy’s tweet that its designs were nothing more than “fun and playful” and that it takes “the safety and well-being of children seriously.”

But conspiracy theorists jumped on the response to further amplify the false claim.

‘Real-world harm’

“Anecdotally, there’s no doubt that the flood of toxic content from repeat offenders Elon has re-platformed is driving real-world harm,” Jesse Lehrich, cofounder of the advocacy group Accountable Tech, told AFP.

“When you reinstate the architects of the Jan. 6 insurrection as democracy teeters on the brink, when you give a massive platform to notorious neo-Nazis amidst a surge in anti-Semitism, when you re-platform influential purveyors of medical disinformation in the middle of a pandemic, there are going to be real-world consequences.”

Travis Brown, a software developer based in Berlin, has compiled an online list of more than 67,000 restored Twitter accounts since Musk’s takeover in late October. Brown told AFP that the list was incomplete and the actual number of restored accounts could be higher.

In a recent BBC interview, Musk pushed back at allegations that misinformation and hateful content were seeing a resurgence since his takeover.

He accused the interviewer of lying. “You said you see more hateful content, but you can’t even name a single one,” Musk said.

Experts AFP spoke to named dozens of examples –- including posts by anti-vaccine propagandists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

After his account was restored, election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell called on his followers to “melt down electronic voting machines” and use them as prison bars.

Anti-LGBTQ+ narratives –- including the false claim that the community “grooms” children –- have spiked on the platform, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

One key driver of the “grooming” narrative, the group said, is conspiracy theorist James Lindsay, whose account was recently restored after previously being banned permanently.

‘Hateful rhetoric’

“The reinstatements increase hateful rhetoric across the platform, creating a culture of tolerance on Twitter — tolerance to misogyny, racism, anti-LGBTQ tendencies,” Nora Benavidez, from the nonpartisan group Free Press, told AFP.

Imran Ahmed, chief executive at CCDH, said “Twitter is monetizing hate at an unprecedented rate.” Just five Twitter accounts peddling the “grooming” narrative generate up to $6.4 million in annual advertising revenue, according to CCDH’s research.

But experts say the strategy is counterproductive as that can hardly offset lost advertising revenue. 

The chaotic shake-up under Musk has scared off several major advertisers. Twitter’s ad income will drop by 28 percent this year, according to analysts at Insider Intelligence, who said “advertisers don’t trust Musk.”

As an alternative, Musk has sought to boost income from a verification checkmark, now available for $8 in a program called Twitter Blue. But dozens of “misinformation super-spreaders” have purchased the blue tick and are inundating the platform with falsehoods, according to the watchdog NewsGuard.

“Musk reinstated accounts to make money and to adopt what he believes, misguidedly, is some ‘equal free speech’ mindset — ignoring that the (policy) makes Twitter a platform which rewards violent language with visibility,” Benavidez said.

“This chills speech and engagement rather than furthers it.”

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Same-sex relationships are no longer punishable by law on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. The parliament of the South Sea nation, which has about 17,000 inhabitants, approved a corresponding law on Monday.

Previously, homosexual acts could be punished with prison sentences of up to five years. Prime Minister Mark Brown spoke in a Facebook post of a “historic day” in parliament. He said his government had fulfilled its promise to “end discrimination against the LGBT community in our society.”

Members of the LGBTQI community celebrated the move. Other island states in Oceania, however, still maintain laws against homosexuals that were enacted under colonial rule, including Samoa, Tonga and the Solomon Islands.

The Cook Islands archipelago is located between New Zealand and Hawaii and consists of 15 islands. The largest of these is Rarotonga where the capital Avarua is situated.

Sir Elton John is being included in a new exhibition to celebrate the “fluid” concept of being a “diva”.

The 76-year-old ‘Rocket Man’ singer’s famous Louis XIV-inspired look designed by Sandy Powell that included a gigantic wig, worn by Elton for his 50th birthday in 1997, is among the photos, art and costumes going on display at the V and A Museum in south Kensington, London.

It’s ‘DIVA’ show, opens on June 24, will also feature Prince and drag queen RuPaul, along with dresses worn by “iconic” women from Maria Callas and Marylin Monroe to Tina Turner.

The V and A said: “DIVA will celebrate the power and creativity of iconic performers, exploring and redefining the role of ‘diva’ and how this has been subverted or embraced over time across opera, stage, popular music, and film.”

It has added the exhibition will also chart the history of the diva term – which means goddess in Italian – from its use for female opera singers to its “fluid” modern-day usage, including for contemporary male stars.

Show curator Kate Bailey added: “Today the word diva holds a myriad of meanings. At the heart of this exhibition is a story of iconic performers who with creativity, courage and ambition have challenged the status quo and used their voice and their art to redefine and reclaim the diva.

“DIVA will be the first major exhibition to tackle the subject and to re-examine our perception of the diva in history and in popular culture.

“The exhibition will feature trail-blazing divas who have disrupted the status quo and pushed boundaries through their art and voice – including bohemian performer Sarah Bernhardt – worshipped by fans as ‘The Divine Sarah’ – whose performances in male and female roles were celebrated for their expressiveness, intensity and flamboyance.”

Dame Shirley Bassey, 86, said: “It is wonderful to see the diva celebrated in this exhibition, and to see the V and A reclaiming the title.

“To me, ‘diva’ is all about the power of the voice and the ability to entertain, to succeed against odds, to fight, and break through barrier after barrier: to have your voice heard.”

The exhibition also spotlights Rihanna, Dolly Parton and Barbra Streisand, and focuses on how stars have branched into business and branding as well as showing how artists such as Aretha Franklin shook the status quo.

Debbie Harry is also highlighted in the show as a “pioneer for women in punk whose unique, rebellious style and image reveals how the diva can occupy new and changing musical genres”.

DIVA will showcase more than 250 objects spanning fashion, photography, design, costumes, music and live performance.