Cheryl has paid tribute to former Girls Aloud bandmate Sarah Harding, who died on Sunday after battling breast cancer.
In an Instagram post, the 38-year-old said: “Although we knew this day would arrive I am somehow still feeling at a loss for words that our stunning, unique, crazy, quirky, kind and soft-hearted girl has departed.
“As I try to navigate my way through these painfully strange and horribly unfamiliar waves of disbelief & finality I am experiencing, I wanted to extend my condolences to all of our GA fans.
“We were like an extended family for so long and we know so many of you by name.
“I wanted to make sure you knew just how much your love and continued support meant to Sarah through her most vulnerable times.
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“She was so grateful and you really lifted her spirits when she needed you most. I also realise so many will be deeply affected by the circumstances of Sarah’s passing… I am sending you all so much love I love you Sarah… farewell.
The other former members of Girls Aloud – Kimberley Walsh, Nadine Coyle and Nicola Roberts – have also paid tribute to Harding, whose death at 39 was confirmed on Sunday by her mother.
The band rose to fame following the 2002 edition of ITV’s Popstars: The Rivals, which saw the formation of the supergroup.
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Sarah Harding’s consultant on her illness
When Harding revealed her diagnosis in August 2020, Cheryl posted a tweet with just a single, broken-hearted emoji.
Earlier today, Walsh posted a picture on Instagram of herself and Harding, with the caption: “Beautiful Sarah this hurts so bad. To wake up and know that you are really gone is too much to bear.
“Hearing your infectious chuckle was one of my favourite things in the world.
“Your fire burned so bright and you loved, lived and laughed so hard.
“Sending love and strength to everyone who is grieving today. My heart is broken.”
In a message on Instagram, Harding’s mother said the singer “slipped away peacefully” and that “she was a bright shining star and I hope that’s how she can be remembered instead”.
She first spotted the cancer when she noticed a painful lump in her breast – but put off going to the hospital due to the pandemic.
In her memoirs, she said: “One day I woke up realising that I’d been in denial.
“Yes, there was a lockdown, yes, there was a pandemic, but it was almost as if I’d been using that as an excuse not to face up to the fact that something was very wrong.
“I called and spoke to someone at the local hospital.
“A woman asked me exactly how many painkillers I’d taken, and when I told her, she told me I needed to go to A&E.”
In the wake of Harding’s death, breast cancer charities have been sharing the signs of the disease to help people spot the symptoms early.
Kate Nash says selling photos of her bottom on the X-rated site OnlyFans has allowed her to add an extra crew member to her tour staff.
The 37-year-old singer says the fact she is having to subsidise her shows in this way shows that the music industry is “completely broken”.
She announced she was launching her OnlyFans account last week as she began the UK leg of her tour, and has previously said on Instagram that, “touring makes losses not profits”.
Speaking about her new venture to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she said it was “very funny” and “fun to do,” adding, “My industry is completely broken, I don’t think it’s sustainable, and I think it’s a complete failure, I think it will collapse as well”.
Going on to talk about “people finding solutions to fund their art,” she said: “I think it’s quite empowering, and I’m also creating jobs with my bum now.
“For example, I couldn’t bring a crew member that’s on tour with me in the UK to Europe, but now I can, because of my OnlyFans website.”
She has previously described the career move as a “punk protest,” containing “lots of comedy”.
Speaking to LBC last week, she said: “The cost of touring has gone up. Just like the cost of living crisis, there’s a cost-of-touring crisis – where the cost of travel, accommodation, crew wages, bus rental, all the things that you need to pay for when you go on tour, everything’s gone up.
“But a lot of bands’ and artists’ fees for gigs have not gone up, whereas ticket prices have gone up.”
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Nash also said music was an “exploitative industry,” adding, “I have had lots of experience of being exploited”.
She said it could “learn a lot from the sex industry”.
Beginning her career in 2005, Nash has had one UK top 10 single – 2007’s Foundations – and two UK top 10 albums.
She has just finished a three-week US tour and is now touring the UK before moving on to Europe. Her London gig later this week is sold out.
And Nash isn’t the only one branching out to bring in cash. Lily Allen said earlier this year that she had joined OnlyFans to sell photographs of her feet.
The 39-year-old Smile singer, who moved to the US in 2020, says she has “very strict guidelines” and is charging subscribers $10 (£8) a month to view images of her feet on the platform.
Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenterposted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
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Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
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She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
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She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.