Lady Gaga says Taylor Swift was “really brave” to reveal her eating disorder.

The ‘Born This Way’ singer, 36, praised her fellow performer, 33, after a clip resurfaced from Taylor’s 2020 documentary ‘Miss Americana’ that showed her talking for the first time about her past condition early in her career and previous body image issues.

Footage from the film shared by Taylor fans on TikTok showed the singer saying: “I don’t care as much if somebody points out that I have gained weight, it’s just something that makes my life better.

“The fact that I’m a size six instead of a size 00 – that wasn’t how my body was supposed to be.

“I just didn’t really understand that at the time. I would have defended it to anybody who said, ‘I’m concerned about you.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about? Of course I eat, it’s perfectly normal, I just exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot, but I wasn’t eating.

“I don’t think you know you’re doing that when you’re doing it gradually. “There’s always some standard of beauty that you’re not meeting, because if you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that a** that everybody wants. But if you have enough weight on you to have an a**, then your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f****** impossible.”

Gaga – who has previously detailed her eating disorder battle – took to the comments section of an account that posted the video and said: “That’s really brave everything you said, wow,” adding a black heart emoji to her message,

The video was shared by Taylor Swift fan account @angclswift and was captioned: “This scene always breaks my heart.”

Gaga revealed in 2013 her fight with “anorexia and bulimia”, saying on ‘Little Monsters’ social media site she had struggled with an eating disorder from the age of 15.

Los Angeles (AFP) – The nominations for the Academy Awards were unveiled Tuesday, with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” leading the way with 11 nods.

But as usual, the announcement stoked plenty of controversy, from the absence of female directors to the surprise inclusion of an actress from a film almost nobody has seen.

Here are five key takeaways:

#OscarsSoMale

No women received best director nominations this year — an absence that quickly prompted anger and claims of sexism on social media.

It has been a regular source of criticism for the Oscars over the years. Until 2021, Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) was the only female to ever win Hollywood’s top directing prize.

But the Oscar has gone to women for the past two years, with Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) appearing to finally end decades of male domination.

This year, however, strong candidates including Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) and Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Woman King”) were overlooked by voters, with trade magazine Variety proposing the perhaps inevitable hashtag #OscarsSoMale.

The nominees are Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”), Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Todd Field (“Tar”), Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”).

‘To Leslie’

One of the more startling nominations went to Andrea Riseborough for “To Leslie” — a tiny independent film about a Texas single mother struggling with alcoholism who won the lottery but quickly squandered her wealth.

While her performance had been widely praised, very few people have seen the movie — it has netted a paltry $27,322 in total, according to BoxOfficeMojo.

However, Riseborough benefited from an intense, last-minute social media campaign mounted on her behalf by celebrity friends including Edward Norton, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sarah Paulson.

‘Fabelmans’ surprise

Few doubted that Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical drama “The Fabelmans” would land a best supporting actor nomination, with Paul Dano receiving widespread acclaim for his portrayal of the director’s father.

But instead Academy voters cast ballots for 87-year-old Judd Hirsch, who appears in the film for less than 10 minutes.

Hirsch plays a cantankerous and highly eccentric great-uncle who shows up unexpectedly to offer a young Spielberg advice about pursuing his filmmaking dreams.

The Academy has previous form in rewarding brief cameos with golden statuettes, including Judi Dench “for Shakespeare in Love” and Beatrice Straight for barely five minutes in “Network.”

‘RRR’

Despite not being submitted as India’s official Oscars pick, the unapologetically over-the-top action film “RRR” has built grassroots support to become a hugely popular favorite in Hollywood in recent months.

Fans include “Avatar” director James Cameron, who was seen praising its director S.S. Rajamouli in a recent video that went viral on social media, prompting hopes the film could land a best picture Oscar nomination.

While that did not happen, its catchy musical number “Naatu Naatu” was nominated for best original song.

The film that India instead submitted for best international feature, “Last Film Show,” failed to land a nomination.

“No shade to the movie they did choose, which is actually very good, but ‘RRR’ was a slam dunk,” Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis told AFP.

Rihanna v Gaga

With award show television ratings plummeting in recent years, Oscars producers will be keen to ensure some of showbiz’s biggest names attend the ceremony in March.

No category is more star-studded than best original song, which features Lady Gaga, Rihanna and David Byrne.

Gaga sang “Hold My Hand” in “Top Gun: Maverick,” Rihanna performed “Lift Me Up” in superhero sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and Talking Heads frontman Byrne penned “This Is A Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

The category is rounded out by M.M. Keeravaani’s “Naatu Naatu” and “Applause” by Diane Warren.

Warren has now been nominated an astonishing 14 times without winning best original song — although she did receive an honorary Academy Award last year for a song-writing career including Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”

Madonna’s biopic has been axed after the pop star announced her world tour.

The 64-year-old singer was set to direct the much-anticipated biopic – which had Julia Garner as its lead – but the project has been put on hold after Madonna announced her ‘Celebration’ tour.

The fate of the film was thrown into doubt after Madonna confirmed that she was hitting the road, according to Variety.

Despite this, the chart-topping star – whose previous film credits include ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ and ‘Evita’ – is keen to revive the project at a later date.

Madonna previously admitted that writing the script for the biopic had been a “challenging experience”.

She said: “Writing my script is the most draining, challenging experience I’ve ever had.

“It’s kind of like psychotherapy in a way, because I have to remember every detail from my childhood till now.

“Remembering all the things that made me decide to be who I am, my journey as an artist, my decision to leave Michigan to go to New York, all the things that happened to me when I was young and naive, my relationships with my family and friends, watching many of my friends die.”

Madonna also found the writing process to be a very emotional experience.

The ‘Like a Prayer’ hitmaker shared: “Sometimes, I have writing sessions where I go to bed and I just want to cry.

“The thing is, I realise I forgot a lot of things, and reliving, digging deep, trying to recall emotions that I felt in certain moments, both joyful and traumatic experiences. I realise I’ve lived a crazy life … But I would find myself at night, lying there in bed, thinking, ‘My God, did that really happen to me? Did I really know that person?'”

Dave Chappelle doesn’t care if people “take issue” with his jokes, but he warned cancel culture is in danger of “taking the nuance out of speech”.

The 49-year-old comedian has been targeted by protestors who have accused him of making transphobic jokes and he insisted those out to campaign again are not speaking from a place of “love” but because they want to be “feared”.

He said: “There’s a thing they do where they deliberately obscure what I think they believe is the intent of my work to make a moment of it that I don’t know that the work necessarily merits. You know what I mean?

“I’m not even mad that they take issue with my work. Good, fine. Who cares? What I take issue with is the idea that because they don’t like it, I’m not allowed to say it.

“‘Art is a nuanced endeavour. I have a belief that they are trying to take the nuance out of speech in American culture, that they’re making people speak as if they’re either on the right or the left.

“Everything seems absolute, and any opinion I respect is way more nuanced than these binary choices they keep putting in front of us. I don’t see the world in red or blue.

“Trying to silence a person like me, I don’t think it has anything to do with being loved. They want to be feared. ‘If you say this, then we will punish you.’ “

Last July, Dave was forced to move his Minneapolis show from the First Avenue club to the Varsity Theater, and though he was greeted by a standing ovation, the evening was marred by protests outside the new venue, and he’s now hit out at the hypocritical conduct of those gathered outside.

Speaking on his ‘Midnight Miracle’ podcast, he said: “They threw eggs at the [fans] who were lined up to see the show…

“When I walked on stage, it was a huge ovation because suddenly going to see a comedy show was this huge act of defiance.

“I don’t think anyone had any malicious intent. In fact, one of the things that these people, the trans and their surrogates, always say is that my jokes are somehow gonna be the root cause of some impending violence that they feel like is inevitable for my jokes.

“But I gotta tell you, as abrasive as they were, the way they were protesting, throwing eggs at people, throwing barricades, cussing and screaming, [none of my fans] beat ’em up. In fact, the people in the crowd would just say, ‘We love you. Like what are you talking about?’ “

And the Netflix star also hit out at the original venue after they apologised for booking Dave and pledged to keep the club a “safe space”.

He said: “I guess apparently they had made a pledge to the public at large that they would make their club a safe space for all people, and that they would ban anything they deemed transphobic.

“This is a wild stance for an artistic venue to take, especially one that’s historically a punk rock venue.”

Beyonce’s father, Mathew Knowles, has defended his daughter’s Dubai concert following a backlash from the LGBTQ+ community.

The ‘Cuff It’ singer made her grand return to the stage after five years at the invite-only launch of the luxurious new Atlantis The Royal hotel in Dubai at the weekend – which allegedly saw the superstar earn $280,000 per minute.

The UAE has strict laws against homosexuality but the record executive insists the 41-year-old Grammy winner has “always stood for inclusiveness” and would “never do something to deliberately hurt someone.”

The businessman told TMZ the ‘Crazy in Love’ hitmaker “united a really diverse crowd with her incredible performance overseas, bringing people closer, as she does best.”

He added that Beyonce “gave respect and got respect back from the country.”

Mathew also told the outlet the singer is planning a ‘Renaissance’ world tour.

The ‘Love On Top’ hitmaker didn’t feature any songs from her latest album in the setlist, but she did perform hits including ‘Beautiful Liar’, ‘Halo’, ‘Crazy In Love’ and ‘Drunk In Love’.

During the show, Beyonce treated the select audience to a special moment as she brought her 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy out on stage to sing a duet with her.

The pair teamed up to perform ‘Brown Skin Girl’, with Beyonce telling the audience: “Where are all my brown skin girls? Give it up for my baby, my brown skin girl, Miss Blue Ivy Carter.”

The youngster wore a sparkly red suit with trainers and her mum affectionately touched her face as they sang together, with the singer telling the crowd: “Love to all the brown skin girls. If you love brown skin women, help me sing.”

Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z and their three children – also including five-year-old twins Rumi and Sir – as well as her parents Tina Knowles-Lawson and Mathew were all in the audience for the exclusive event while famous faces who landed an invite included Kendall Jenner, Rebel Wilson, Ellen Pompeo, Liam Payne and Bar Refaeli.

Sam Smith was “spat at” by a stranger after publicly changing their pronouns.

The ‘Stay With Me’ star came out as non-binary and adopted the gender pronouns of they/them back in 2019 and the singer has now revealed they were bombarded with abuse and even harassed on the street after bravely made their true identity known – and Sam says the constant hatred was just “exhausting”.

Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Sam said: “I think all the only negatives in the struggle have been in my public life and my job. And just the amount of hate and s******** that came my way was just exhausting.

“It was in the f****** news. Someone spat at me in the street. It’s crazy. What I find hard about it is it’s like, if that’s happening to me and I’m famous, I’m a pop star, can you imagine what other kids, like queer kids are feeling?”

Sam added: “It’s just so sad that we’re in 2023 and it’s still happening. It’s exhausting and especially in England.”

However, Sam is adamant they have no regrets because changing pronouns helped them feel “comfortable”.

They went on: “So we’ve got two sides, really. My personal life and then my public life. And in my personal life, there’s not one negative.

“My family, they can communicate with me. They always did. But they communicate with me now in an even better way. My love life has become better from it. I feel lovable. I feel comfortable in my skin, but I wear what I want to wear.

“Since changing my pronouns, it felt like a coming home. I wish I knew what the words were when I was in school, because I would’ve identified as that in school. Because it is who I am and it’s who I’ve always been.”

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – A coalition of 25 U.S. states led by Texas and Utah filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down a Biden administration rule allowing retirement plans to consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors such as climate change and racial justice when selecting investments.

The states filed a complaint in a federal court in Amarillo, Texas, on Thursday arguing that the rule finalized in November will lead many retirement plans to focus on a social agenda rather than long-term financial stability for investors.

The rule, which takes effect on Monday, reverses restrictions on socially conscious investing that were adopted by the Trump administration.

The states in Thursday’s lawsuit said the new rule fails to justify the departure from Trump-era regulations, in violation of the federal law governing rulemaking.

And, the states said, it violates the U.S. law that regulates employee benefit plans by failing to protect retirement assets.

The U.S. Department of Labor, which adopted the rule, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, in a statement called the rule “insulting and illegal.”

“For generations, federal law has required that fiduciaries place their clients’ financial interests at the forefront, and I intend to fight the Biden Administration in court to ensure that they cannot put hard-working Americans’ retirement savings at risk,” Paxton said.

The lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has struck down Biden administration rules on immigration and healthcare protections for LGBT people.

The case is Utah v. Walsh, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, No. 2:23-cv-00016.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis)

London (AFP) – A British teenager was on Friday sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for videos promoting racist violence that have been linked to two mass killings in the United States.

Judge Patrick Field called Daniel Harris, 19, “highly dangerous” and a “propagandist for an extremist right-wing ideology”.

“You were in close touch with other right-wing extremists online and there can be little doubt that you shared ideas between you,” Field told Harris in court.

Harris was found guilty in December of five counts of encouraging terrorism and one count of possession of material for terrorist purposes, for trying to make a gun with a 3D printer.

The judge at Manchester Crown Court in northern England sentenced Harris to 11 and a half years, with a further three years under supervised probation.

The court heard that the teenager from Derbyshire in central England posted videos online for over a year, from the age of 17.

Harris reportedly posted under the name BookAnon on a platform called World Truth Videos.

His videos were shared by self-declared white supremacist Payton Gendron, who has pleaded guilty to murdering 10 black people in the United States. 

‘Exterminate sub-humans’

Field told Harris “at the very least, the material you produced and published has had some influence upon the young man (Gendron)”.

Gendron was 18 when he shot dead his victims in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York in May 2022.

Prosecutors said a link was also found between Harris’s videos and Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, the sole suspect in a shooting in a gay nightclub in the US city of Colorado Springs in November 2022.

The prosecutor said that one of Harris’s videos was posted on a “brother site” to one showing a livestream of Aldrich before the attack, which left five people dead.

The court was told one of Harris’s videos, titled “How to Achieve Victory”, called for “total extermination of sub-humans once and for all”.

Another video paid homage to the white supremacist murderer of British MP Jo Cox in 2016.

He also praised the Australian white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslim people in New Zealand mosques in 2019 as a “saint”.

Harris was arrested by counter-terrorism police at his home in the town of Glossop last May, two days after the attack in Buffalo.

He had been previously convicted for vandalising a Manchester memorial to George Floyd, whose suffocation by a white police officer in Minneapolis triggered the worldwide “Black Lives Matter” protests.

‘Radicalising others’

Harris was placed in a government deradicalisation programme, but Counter-Terrorism Policing detective inspector Chris Brett said he continued to post extremist material.

“Harris was ultimately deemed not to have been groomed, rather his provocative words and inflammatory films were potentially radicalising others,” Brett said.

He warned other extremists that police would find them even if they “hide behind usernames, avatars and other technical blockers”.

UK intelligence agencies, police and lawmakers have stepped up warnings about right-wing extremism.

Domestic security agents have been investigating teenagers as young as 13 with suspected white supremacist beliefs, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said last year.

Of 29 “late-stage” attack plots disrupted in the four preceding years, 10 were by extreme right-wingers, he said.

The House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee said in a December report that the online threat was driven by “predominantly young men, many of them still in their teens”.

Few belong to organised groups and so are difficult to identify and monitor, the report said, and experts warn that online radicalisation only worsened during pandemic lockdowns.

Harris’s lawyer said he was withdrawn from mainstream schooling aged seven and said there had been “quite disgraceful failings” by his family and the local authority.