Blog

  • Diddy accused of ‘sexually maiming’ man

    Diddy accused of ‘sexually maiming’ man

    play

    A month before he’s set to go to trial, Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of taking part in the drugging and sexual assault of a man as part of an “organized criminal enterprise.”

    In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Joseph Manzaro is suing the embattled music mogul for sexually exploiting him in a targeted revenge plot in 2015, according to court documents obtained by USA TODAY on Wednesday.

    Combs’ alleged offenses against Manzaro include human trafficking, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, racketeering and intentional infliction of emotional distress, per the 64-page complaint.

    “Diddy orchestrated and facilitated the abuse, coercion and intimidation of (Manzaro), using his influence, wealth and power to silence and control (Manzaro) and engaged in acts of violence, sexual coercion and psychological manipulation, knowingly causing severe harm while ensuring (Manzaro) remained unable to seek justice,” the lawsuit read.

    Several individuals in Combs’ professional orbit have also been sued for their alleged involvement in Manzaro’s assault. They include Eric Mejias, Brendan Paul, Latin music producer Emilio Estefan and Adria English.

    English brought a lawsuit against Combs in July 2024, claiming the Grammy-winning rapper and his associates sex trafficked her between 2004 and 2009 in New York and Florida. Her complaint was amended and resubmitted in January.

    In a statement to USA TODAY, Combs’ legal team said Manzaro’s lawsuit “demonstrates the depraved lengths plaintiffs will travel to garner headlines in pursuit of a payday,” adding that Combs “looks forward to having his day in court where these lies — and the perverse motives of those who told them — will be revealed.”

    Combs is awaiting a May 5 trial on federal sex crimes after the hip-hop mogul was arrested in September 2024 on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He previously pleaded not guilty to all charges.

    Man alleges celebrity run-ins during abduction orchestrated by Diddy

    In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Manzaro details the alleged events that led to his sexual assault at the hands of Combs.

    Around April 2015, the man claims he was abducted from his West Palm Beach, Florida, home by Mejias. Manzaro recalled arriving at his home and discovering a “greasy substance resembling Vaseline” on the entrance door handle, after which he lost consciousness.

    Per Manzaro’s complaint, Mejias transported Manzaro to his residence in Deerfield Beach, Florida, where he met up with Combs’ other associate Paul. After observing a drug transaction between Mejias, Paul and another man named Omar Bravo, Manzaro alleges he heard Paul tell Mejias that Combs wanted Manzaro to “be brought to a ‘freak-off’ event.”

    According to Combs’ 2024 grand jury indictment, “Freak Offs” were “elaborate and produced sex performances” arranged by Combs, in which victims were allegedly coerced into engaging in “extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers.”

    Manzaro claims he was then taken by Mejias to Estefan’s mansion in Miami for a birthday party for Combs’ son, Christian “King” Combs. The man was reportedly “dragged through the back entrance” of the home, where he briefly came in contact with Estefan and his wife, pop singer Gloria Estefan.

    A spokesperson for the Estefans denied Manzaro’s account in a statement to USA TODAY. The rep said the Miami property referenced in the lawsuit was not the couple’s permanent residence but “a house they owned for family use.”

    “There were no parties thrown at that property between 2012 and 2019,” the statement read. “We have all necessary documentation to support these facts and will provide it to the court.”

    Shortly after Manzaro’s alleged encounter with Emilio and Gloria Estefan, the man alleges he ran into NBA player LeBron James in a hallway. A spokesperson for James told USA TODAY in a statement that Manzaro’s claim is “demonstrably false” due to James’ work schedule.

    “A basic internet search shows what LeBron was doing all of April 2015,” the statement read. “He was playing basketball for the Cleveland Cavaliers and never in Miami.”

    Joseph Manzaro says sexual assault was ‘punishment’ by Diddy

    Following his alleged arrival at the Estefans’ Miami home, Manzaro claims in his lawsuit that he was escorted by English — who reportedly identified herself as “Diddy’s personal sexual assistant” — to Combs’ mansion through a “concealed tunnel” that connected the homes.

    Amid his drugged state, Manzaro alleges he regained “partial consciousness” inside a “large party area” in Combs’ home, which the man says was designated for Christian Combs’ birthday festivities.

    Manzaro alleges Beyoncé and Jay-Z were also in attendance at the party. When asked by the singer why Manzaro was present, Mejias allegedly said, “Diddy wants him to see what we do to snitches. This is part of his punishment.”

    Manzaro was then “forcibly paraded through multiple rooms” while wearing a “cock mask,” according to his complaint. After this, Combs allegedly demanded Manzaro be undressed and placed inside a shower area, where he was forcibly washed by two unidentified women.

    Following the alleged shower, Manzaro claims he was forced to wear a “small thong bikini bottom and a black leather mask with a rubber dam forcibly inserted and zipped closed over his head.” At the direction of Combs and English, Manzaro was subsequently subjected to “degrading and non-consensual acts.”

    Manzaro “was sexually assaulted and forced to partake in unwanted sexual activity,” the lawsuit read, which included “using the mask and sex toy on a large black leather ottoman fist until he lost consciousness again.”

    After the alleged assault, the man claims he was transported to a “gang house,” where he was “savagely beaten” and later “left for dead inside his apartment.”

    Diddy accuser claims he was targeted in harassment campaign

    Manzaro claims that in the years following Combs’ alleged assault, he was targeted by Mejias in an “ongoing campaign of targeted harassment,” which included various death threats and a threat to kidnap the man’s minor son.

    Since the ordeal, Manzaro alleges he’s suffered from “catastrophic physical injuries, including severe internal trauma, permanent groin damage, sexual maiming and multiple inguinal hernias,” according to the lawsuit.

    Moreover, the man has reportedly experienced “profound psychological trauma” and “economic damages” as a result of Combs’ alleged assault.

    As compensation, Manzaro is asking the court to award him unspecified punitive damages “in an amount sufficient to punish” Combs and his associates and “deter them and others from engaging in similar misconduct in the future.” He is also seeking a series of compensatory and treble damages.

    In addition to these damages, Manzaro requested a jury trial and a “permanent injunction” to restrain Combs, his co-defendants and any of their representatives from harassing him, intimidating witnesses and altering or destroying evidence relevant to the case.

    If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish at: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Español RAINN.org/es.

    Contributing: KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY

  • ‘M3GAN 2.0’ first look wows CinemaCon with dancing robot dolls

    ‘M3GAN 2.0’ first look wows CinemaCon with dancing robot dolls

    LAS VEGAS – What’s better than one dancing M3GAN? How about 30 of them?

    More than a two-dozen “dancing robot” M3GANs hit the stage Wednesday at CinemaCon, the convention for theater owners, and grooved to Britney Spears’ “Oops! I Did It Again” to celebrate the return of everyone’s favorite murderous high-tech doll in “M3GAN 2.0” (in theaters June 27).

    Producers (and big-time horror guys) Jason Blum and James Wan introduced the first trailer for the sequel, which takes place two years after 2022’s hit first film. After taking M3GAN down, inventor Gemma (Allison Williams) and her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) now keep the M3GAN AI housed in a cutesy plastic Teletubby-like thing for safekeeping, though she sasses them constantly.

    Unfortunately, a defense contractor has stolen one of Gemma’s early AI models for M3GAN. Named Amelia (and played by “Ahsoka” star Ivanna Sakhno), this new robot is meant to be a killer spy but it goes rogue and comes after those close to M3GAN, including Gemma and Cady.

    Gemma recruits M3GAN to fight Amelia, but our antiheroine wants a body that’s stronger, faster, taller and more lethal than the last. (M3GAN also reiterates her promise to always protect Cady – Gemma, not so much.) The footage concludes with M3GAN and Amelia throwing down, and our girl M3GAN getting the best line: “Hold on to your vaginas.”

    Blum and Wan also debuted the first footage from their spinoff, the more grownup “SOULM8TE,” which offers up an adult version of M3GAN. “Nothing could possibly go wrong with that,” Blum quipped.

    The erotic horror thriller stars David Rysdahl as a grieving widower who orders a sexbot named Sara (Lily Sullivan) that’s designed to be the perfect partner for adults. They get hot and heavy, but Sara gets very clingy, and when her dude begins to see another woman (Claudia Doumit), things go bad for everyone involved.

  • For Good’ trailer shown by Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande

    For Good’ trailer shown by Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande

    LAS VEGAS – After a bunch of “Wicked” success, the women of Oz returned to CinemaCon for a victory lap – and a glimpse of the future.

    “It has been quite a year,” Cynthia Erivo said to a packed crowd of theater owners. It was an understatement, considering the popular Broadway adaptation’s 10 Oscar nominations (including best picture, actress and supporting actress), box-office take (third-highest domestic earner of 2024, with $433 million) and strong imprint on pop culture last holiday season.

    Now they’re doing it all again: Erivo and Ariana Grande debuted the first trailer for the upcoming sequel, “Wicked: For Good” (in theaters Nov. 21). The fresh “For Good” footage picked up from the “Wicked” cliffhanger, with Elphaba (Erivo) defying the wishes of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), leaving her friend Glinda (Grande) and now working on her magic as a fugitive of the law. Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) is shown searching for Elphaba with his group of soldiers, while propaganda emanates from both sides (posters denouncing Elphaba, but her fighting back with “Our Wizard lies” written in the clouds).

    But much of the trailer is with Elphaba and Glinda together, reuniting and figuring out what their relationship will be, plus glimpses at key moments including a wedding involving Glinda and Fiyero, a tease of Fiyero turning on the Wizard to help Elphaba, and an animal-led revolt come to Oz. “I’m off to see the Wizard,” Elphaba warns, borrowing Dorothy’s classic line.

    Grande teased that her character has to “look at her reflection to figure out what it means to be Glinda the Good” – and also shouted out the concession workers at a South Florida Cinemark – while Erivo said Elphaba “has to learn how to use her powers for the betterment of good in exile.” Plus, producer Marc Platt promised “more complexity and more profundity” in both characters.

    Meanwhile, the “Wicked” sequel looks to be leaning hard into its ties to “The Wizard of Oz.” Director Jon M. Chu revealed that the movie “brings us past the point where the girl with the gingham dress drops in from Kansas.” There were even some familiar bits in the “For Good” trailer, with Dorothy and crew walking the yellow brick road and the Wizard ordering them to “bring me” Elphaba’s broomstick.

  • Melinda French Gates addressed Bill Gates’ ‘betrayals’ while divorcing

    Melinda French Gates addressed Bill Gates’ ‘betrayals’ while divorcing

    play

    As Melinda French Gates looks forward to her future, she is getting raw about her past.

    The businesswoman and philanthropist, in detailing the transitions she’s undergone in her life, opens up about divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in her new book, “The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward” (out April 15). The couple’s divorce after nearly three decades of marriage brought on nightmares and panic attacks, she explains in the memoir, according to excerpts published by People magazine.

    French Gates was having nightmares alluding to her collapsing marriage at the end of 2019 that made her realize she was “going to have to make a decision — and that I was going to have to make it by myself,” she writes, per People. Though she keeps details about what prompted the end of their marriage private, she reportedly shares in one excerpt that “Bill has publicly acknowledged that he wasn’t always faithful to me.”

    It was during a February 2020 trip to New Mexico that she broke the news in “one of the scariest conversations I’d have had” that she wanted to live separately from her husband. That summer, she broached the topic of a divorce.

    She also writes, per People, that speaking with a therapist during this time “made it possible for me to respond to the betrayals in my marriage without betraying myself in return.”

    Despite having “panic attacks” over the realization that her soon-to-be ex-husband was “one of the toughest negotiators in the world, the divorce was finalized after a “grueling” and lengthy process. Soon after, on May 3, 2021, they revealed the news to the world in a social media post.

    Now, four years later, French Gates has found herself “quite happy” these days, confirming to People that she has moved on to a new relationship.

    Melinda French Gates calls decision to divorce one of her ‘lowest moments’

    French Gates told USA TODAY in 2022 that the decision to end her marriage was one of the “lowest moments in my life.”

    “I would say probably, though, for sure, my lowest moment in life was when I finally reached the decision that I knew I needed to leave my marriage,” she said. “That wasn’t something I ever thought would happen to me. It certainly wasn’t what I thought on the day I got married, but I realized for myself, I needed to make a healthier choice, and that was just a very, very sad day.”

    In a recent interview, Bill Gates told U.K. newspaper The Times that “The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years,” calling it his “biggest regret.”

    Weeks after their divorce announcement, The Wall Street Journal reported that Bill Gates was investigated by Microsoft directors following an employee’s claims in 2019 of a prior sexual relationship. Gates’ representative told the outlet that his departure from the company’s board in 2020 was unrelated to the allegations, which stemmed from an affair that occurred almost 20 years prior.

    “Well, I certainly believe in forgiveness, so I thought we had worked through some of that,” French Gates told “CBS Mornings” anchor Gayle King in a 2011 interview when asked about this incident. “It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened. There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had.”

    French Gates, who resigned from her role as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last year, has since been dedicating efforts toward her company, Pivotal Ventures.

    The LLC, which has a philanthropic arm, uses “high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships, and advocacy” to advance causes such as building a “modern caregiving system,” centering young people’s mental health, increasing the number of women in public office and helping women enter and succeed in the tech field.

  • Jean-Claude Van Damme: Photos of the ‘Bloodsport’ actor’s careerCelebrities

    Jean-Claude Van Damme: Photos of the ‘Bloodsport’ actor’s careerCelebrities

    Jean-Claude Van Damme: Photos of the ‘Bloodsport’ actor’s careerCelebrities

  • The merge is nearly here. Who’s voted out?

    The merge is nearly here. Who’s voted out?

    play

    The “Survivor” Season 48 merge is finally (almost) here.

    At the start of the sixth episode, titled “Doing the Damn Thing,” the three tribes were told to drop their buffs and join together on one beach as the team portion of the reality competition show ended and a more individual game is about to begin. But it wasn’t merge time quite yet: Players were in “mergatory” this episode, the final step before officially joining together.

    There are just 13 castaways left playing the 26-day game in Fiji with meager food, supplies and shelter, competing in challenges and voting each other out in hopes of winning the $1 million prize and title of “sole survivor.”

    At the beach, the players read a sign stating that an advantage had been hidden somewhere on the island, prompting a mad dash to find it.

    Saiounia “Sai” Hughley was lucky enough to find it, barely beating Charity Nelms in a footrace to claim the advantage.

    But at the challenge, longtime host Jeff Probst told players that they were not yet merged, but would instead have the chance to earn it through a complicated obstacle course. The winning team of six would win a feast, and get the chance to compete to win the individual immunity necklace. As the winner of the advantage, Sai was able to sit out the first part of the challenge, competing only in the immunity competition.

    Here’s what to know about this week’s episode of “Survivor” Season 48.

    Who went home on ‘Survivor’ Season 48, Episode 6?

    Seven players competed in the immunity portion of the challenge, including Sai, who had won the advantage. Contestants had to balance a ball on a circular platform connected to a pole they were holding, and had to gradually add more length to the pole as time went on. One by one players dropped until Kyle Fraser was the last man standing, winning himself the first individual immunity of the season.

    At the merge feast with the seven winning players, Sai threw out Eva Erickson’s name as a contender for going home, because of the well-known fact that Eva had an idol.

    Others, turned off by Sai’s aggressive gameplay and blunt personality, started making plans to vote her out, while others began gunning for Charity, also because of her strong style of gameplay.

    There was some hope that Eva would play her individual immunity idol, flushing it from the game, but she didn’t take the bait and no votes were cast against her.

    In the end, Charity, a 34-year-old flight attendant living in St. Petersburg, Florida, received the majority of votes and became the sixth person voted out of the game.

    After she exited tribal council, host Jeff Probst revealed to the 12 remaining players that they had finally made to the merge portion of the game.

    Who went home last week on ‘Survivor’ Season 48?

    After an emotional immunity challenge where contestant Eva Erickson shared her autism diagnosis with the rest of the cast, causing host Jeff Probst to tear up, it was back to business and tribal council for the losing Civa tribe.

    Once the Civa members were back on their beach, Bianca Roses realized she was in a predicament.

    Roses had lost her vote in a previous episode, effectively giving her no power in the forthcoming events. At first, she kept this information to herself, working both sides of the Chrissy Sarnowsky-Mitch Guerra alliance and the tenuous Cedrek McFadden-Sai Hughley alliance.

    At first, Chrissy and Mitch were game to vote out Sai, and Bianca worked to convince Cedrek to do the same. But just as they were leaving for tribal council, Bianca revealed her secret to Cedrek in hopes it would garner trust and further influence his vote on Sai.

    But things did not go according to plan for Bianca, who of course had no vote and no power at tribal council. Mitch voted for Sai, Sai voted for Chrissy, and in a surprise twist, Cedrek and Chrissy voted for Bianca, who had no vote at all, making the 33-year-old PR consultant living in Arlington, Virginia, the fifth person to be voted out of Season 48.

    How to watch ‘Survivor’ Season 48

    Season 48 of “Survivor” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET / PT on CBS and streams on Paramount+ for subscribers of the Paramount+ with Showtime plan.

    Episodes can be streamed the next day for subscribers of any Paramount+ plan.

    The previous 47 seasons of the show are all available to stream with a Paramount+ subscription.

    Watch every season of Survivor on Paramount+

    Who is the host of ‘Survivor’?

    Jeff Probst has hosted all 48 seasons of the show, which has been on the air since 2000. He also serves as an executive producer.

    Who won ‘Survivor’ Season 47?

    Rachel Lamont won Season 47 of “Survivor,” in a 7-1-0 vote against Sam Phalen, who got one vote, and Sue Smey.

    Lamont, a 34-year-old graphic designer from Southfield, Michigan, was originally on the Gata tribe and became the fifth woman ever to win four individual Immunity Challenges in a season.

    Where is ‘Survivor’ filmed?

    While “Survivor” previously took contestants to remote locations around the world, from the Pearl Islands to the Philippines and Guatemala, the show has been filmed in the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji for the past 15 seasons.

    We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

    Our team of savvy editors independently handpicks all recommendations. If you make a purchase through our links, we may earn a commission. Prices were accurate at the time of publication but may change.

  • The Yale Center for British Art remains as fiercely contemporary as ever

    The Yale Center for British Art remains as fiercely contemporary as ever

    Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

    Louis Kahn died in a lavatory at New York’s Penn Station in 1974. He was returning from India but the address in his passport had been mysteriously scratched out and his body remained unidentified for three days. It was an ignominious end for the man the New York Times called “America’s foremost living architect”.

    At the time he was working on designs for the Yale Center for British Art, which opened to the public three years after he died and became his final museum building. His first museum stands just over the road in New Haven, the 1953 Yale University Art Gallery. When that opened it caused a scandal; its fiercely reductive brick wall was seen as an insult to the rich decoration of the elaborate building that it extended (surprisingly dating from only 25 years earlier yet full-on historical).

    By the time the Yale Center opened to the public in 1977, Kahn had gone a little out of fashion, his monumental work looking ponderous and solemn compared to, say, the flamboyant glass and steel Centre Pompidou, which had opened a couple of months earlier in Paris. But now, almost half a century later, the Pompidou is having to undergo a huge refurbishment at the cost of hundreds of millions of euros. The YCBA meanwhile has just had its lamps and skylights updated for $16.5mn.

    The YCBA is clad in stainless steel panels © Richard Caspole

    I’m underplaying, of course. As always with the conservation of modernist structures there is much complexity and unseen labour as well as an earlier restoration in 2016 that did a good deal of heavy lifting, but nevertheless Kahn’s museum building looks, I would argue, as contemporary as anything you might be able to build today. Walking around it and taking notes feels like reviewing a brand-new building, albeit an oddly familiar one.

    One of its most striking facets is the contrast between the white oak-encased richness of its interior and the grey, steely coldness of its outside face. Clad in stainless steel panels and almost entirely flush with the glass and the shopfronts, it is a cool piece of contemporary urbanism that disguises the preciousness of the works inside, the finest collection of British art outside the UK, accumulated by American philanthropist Paul Mellon. It is also an extremely unusual exterior. Most museums revel in their own status in the street, jostling to be the main attraction. But here Yale was doing something new; with this building they crossed over Chapel Street, the historic border between the university and the town. As a result Kahn attempted to integrate this new building into the cityscape, not only as monument but as a functioning part of the commercial street.

    The storefront and fascias, like the interiors, have been beautifully restored by architect George Knight, with no fuss and almost complete invisibility. All the building’s 224 acrylic skylights have been replaced with more robust polycarbonate domes and the light appears to have changed; cleaner, cooler. That’s accentuated by the updating of the museum’s lighting fixtures, the shapes and containers of which have been mostly retained, with the old halogen lights replaced by LEDs, creating a more neutral, albeit colder light (and a 60 per cent increase in energy efficiency).

    Three paintings on a wall with people standing in front of them
    The museum is a cool piece of contemporary urbanism . . . 
    Walls full of hanging paintings from the ceiling to the floor
     . . .  that disguises the preciousness of the works inside © Richard Caspole

    The top floor is, as it always was, luminous. Huge concrete coffers funnel toplight in but every level is permeated by natural light thanks to Kahn’s unusual decision to design the galleries around a pair of atria. This means light trickles rather than floods in but it also creates a spatial awareness rare in museums, with the visitor always aware of their position in relation to those spaces. It is extremely easy to navigate and made even more so by the looming presence of the charismatic concrete stair core, a castle tower of a cylinder that stands as a sculptural presence in one of the atria. 

    If the building appears to have changed barely at all, the art has subtly shifted. The museum is opening with a pair of shows that oddly collide in Margate: Tracey Emin (who grew up in the coastal town) and JMW Turner (who spent much of his childhood there). For Emin this is, rather remarkably, her first museum show in the US and it is exactly what you might expect: profoundly personal, revealing, freighted with sex, sickness and emotion, striking graphic works displayed to their full effect. For Turner there must always be a problem of selecting from the nearly 3,000 works in the collection but the curators do well, embracing everything from early seascapes and epic roiling oceans to the fine inscribed lines of the engravings and prints that made his work so popular. A small sketchbook on display provides an astonishing burst of light and colour. Like Kahn, Turner was an artist preoccupied by light and the two square up in perfect balance. 

    Lights hanging from a skylight
    The museum’s skylights and lighting fixtures have been updated . . .  © Richard Caspole/YCBA
    The inside of a building with skylights in the ceiling and art on the walls
    . . . creating a more neutral light © Office of Public Affairs & Communications

    An effort to counterbalance a picture of imperial power and elite portraiture arrives in the form of works by Cecily Brown and Yinka Shonibare, along with existing and restored works from the collection that throw new light on women artists (notably Mary Beale, 1633-99) and paintings illuminating aspects of British colonialism from tea to sugar plantations, from the Himalayas to the Caribbean; landscapes as maps of conquest and presence.

    Kahn’s building is so good that it has become a little fetishised. You sense that the curators are almost frustrated at the art being overlooked by those who revere the setting. But it is a curious situation where the architecture is so successful precisely because it allows you to admire the art, as well as to see it in a wider context. Kahn was arguably the first major US architect to reject the modernism’s objectivity and modular rigidity in favour of something more archetypal and monumental, an architecture that was fiercely contemporary and yet which created spaces that were humane and often even familiar.

    A room with a yellow neon sign on a mirror
    Tracey Emin’s canary-yellow neon work ‘I loved you until the morning’ was commissioned for the museum’s entrance

    Here he used a Renaissance palazzo as a model, referring to the entrance atrium as a “cortile”. Now cleaned up and freer of stuff, those ideas become clearer. Much like in an Italian palace, this is a building at street level, with none of the steps of the traditional art museum but instead contiguous with the pavement. Free to enter and open to all, this is truly a public palace. And if there were ever any doubt about the nature of a building that appears to melt into the street with its storefronts and its unassuming cutaway entrance, that has now been addressed through the commission of a canary-yellow neon work by Tracey Emin: “I loved you until the morning”, scrawled in familiar angsty script transmuted into light. It shimmers through to Chapel Street, intriguing and inviting. Love become light seems a pretty gorgeous metaphor for one of the modern era’s most seductive museums.

    britishart.yale.edu

    Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning

  • Maria Shriver on her liberating new book, Patrick’s ‘White Lotus’ fame

    Maria Shriver on her liberating new book, Patrick’s ‘White Lotus’ fame

    play

    The end of Maria Shriver’s 25-year marriage knocked her to the floor, the way gut-wrenching heartbreak does. How can you stand when your very foundation has been washed away? Shriver, now 69, sobbed in a hotel room while grappling with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity and revelation he fathered a son during an affair that spurred prolific headlines in 2011.

    Shriver fell for the Austrian body-builder-turned actor (who’d later turn Governator) at the Robert F. Kennedy Tennis Tournament in 1977. Mr. Universe became her world when they exchanged vows in 1986 at a Catholic church in Hyannis, Massachusetts, just a couple of miles from the Kennedy compound. The bride’s cousin, Caroline Kennedy, served as maid of honor.

    Schwarzenegger and the daughter of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver welcomed four children during their marriage: Katherine, now 35; Christina, now 33; Patrick, now 31 and Christopher, now 27. They spilt in 2011 after Shriver learned of her husband’s affair with their housekeeper which resulted in the birth of Joseph Baena, now 27.

    Shriver remembers the collapse of her marriage in her latest book, “I Am Maria: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home” (available now).

    “Through my poetry,” she writes, “I’ve found, and am still finding, a woman who was terrified of not being able to live up to her family’s legacy — scared of not being big enough, scared of not being good enough, a good-enough daughter, a good-enough sister, a good-enough wife, a good-enough mother, a good-enough journalist. A good-enough human being.”

    She also revisits the need to construct a new identity following her separation. In that hotel room, she encouraged herself, “Maria, this doesn’t have to be the end of you. It can’t be the end of you,” she writes. “Make it a new beginning of you.”

    Naturally, the Peabody award-winning journalist began with questions.

    “I started asking, ‘When did this start? When did you first feel heartbreak? When did you first feel lost? When did you first acknowledge that love was tied to accomplishment?’ And I just went back so that I could go forward. I tried to peel apart every single thing and make peace for it, try to understand it and let it go,” she tells USA TODAY.

    She enlisted the help of therapists, shamans, mediums, psychics, candles, crystals, plant medicine and self-improvement books. She practiced meditation, Pilates and yoga.

    “I was hard-working, diligent and determined to remake myself into a more tender-hearted, vulnerable, stronger version of myself,” she says. “I wanted to have a specific kind of relationship with Arnold. I wanted my children to have the relationship they wanted to have with him, separate from anything, my voice in their head. I had a specific idea of the kind of person I wanted to be, and I just worked towards that.”

    Shriver’s poetry allowed her to trace the effects of her upbringing in a family in which, as she writes, “you didn’t sit around and talk about your feelings. You went out into the world and had an impact.”

    “I certainly was raised with, ‘You have to go out and do something big and you better do it quick,’” Shriver says. She thought her broadcast journalism career would be the ticket. “But of course it’s not,” she says. Then she thought, “‘Oh, I’ll do the First Lady (of California) thing. That’ll be big, that’ll be powerful. Everybody will say that was the best first lady ever!’” But that wasn’t the answer, either. “What I’ve come to learn (is despite) whatever anybody else says it’s what you feel on the inside, do you feel seen? Do you feel connected? Do you feel good in your own life, in your own skin? Do you feel loved? These are the things that actually make you feel big, right?”

    Today Shriver knows herself to be “kind-hearted, loving, fun, funny, strong, fierce, loved woman,” she says, “someone who wants to make our world better, to see others, understand others, have compassion for others, and have the same for myself. I feel my feet are on the ground. I feel grounded in the love of my children, my friends, my family, and I feel deeply, deeply grateful,”

    That sense of self derived internally, Shriver says, is something she talks “non-stop” to her four children about, including Patrick, who’s gained fame as protein shake-pounding finance bro Saxon Ratliff on the current season of “The White Lotus.”

    Because “even though he may be having a moment, everybody else at the table is, in their own ways, also having a moment,” Shriver says. “They are loved unconditionally, regardless of what they do in life, (it) has nothing to do with the love that is there for them. They are a priority. They are seen. They are distinct from one another but grounded in their loyalty to one another. Moments come and moments go. But what doesn’t is the love that is there for them. The joy that’s there for them. The friendship, the family, the certainty that they can come home at any time and sit on the couch and be enough.”

  • Deborah Norville from 'Inside Edition': See the anchor through the yearsCelebrities

    Deborah Norville from 'Inside Edition': See the anchor through the yearsCelebrities

    Deborah Norville from ‘Inside Edition’: See the anchor through the yearsCelebrities

  • ‘Inside Edition’ anchor Deborah Norville leaving after 30 years

    ‘Inside Edition’ anchor Deborah Norville leaving after 30 years

    play

    Deborah Norville is leaving “Inside Edition” after 30 years of inside scoops.

    The former “Today” show co-anchor announced she is leaving the show at the end of its season during Wednesday’s episode, according to a clip released on the show’s social media pages.

    “It has been such an honor and privilege to be here at ‘Inside’ (Edition) for all these years,” she said on the telecast. “A milestone like this is a time for reflection, and on reflection, I have decided that now is the time to move on from ‘Inside Edition.”

    She also revealed that “Inside Edition” producers wanted her to stay on the program.

    “They made me a lovely offer to stay, but there are things I’d like to do and places I want to do them that continuing here doesn’t permit,” Norville said. In December, Variety reported that Norville would host the game show “The Perfect Line,” which is set to premiere in the fall.

    Norville added: “So, at the end of the season, I’ll be moving on. I’ve got some exciting things in the works, which I’ll talk about later, but what I want to say now is what a privilege it’s been to lead ‘Inside Edition’ for all these years. To work with the incredibly talented team here, and to be invited into your homes every day, it’s an honor I don’t take lightly.”

    Deborah Norville joined ‘Inside Edition’ in 1995, resulting in 30-year run

    On Wednesday, Norville also took to her personal social media pages to pay tribute to her time on “Inside” with a personal video.

    “It’s been an amazing ride and I will leave with gratitude for the people I have worked with and for — and the viewers who have watched,” she captioned the post.

    “Twice before, I made career moves for personal reasons (Chicago to NBC News in NY, CBS News to Inside Edition) and they were the right decisions. This decision is also motivated by family … and I know it’s a good one. There’s lots more to come from me … just from a new place,” she concluded the caption.

    The longtime TV journalist first joined “Inside Edition” in 1995 after leaving CBS News, where she served as both anchor and correspondent. Before that, she was a co-anchor of NBC’s “Today.” The Georgia-born on-air personality first started her career at FOX 5 Atlanta after graduating from the University of Georgia in Athens.

    Deborah Norville publicly battled cancer on TV after help from viewer

    Norville’s time on the program has been full of ups and downs, including her public cancer journey in 2019.

    In a video announcement in April 2019, Norville said she would undergo surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid nodule first pointed out by a viewer. 

    “We live in a world of see something, say something, and I’m really glad we do,” she said in a video announcement posted on the show’s official YouTube account. 

    Contributing: Cydney Henderson, USA TODAY