Ross Kemp turned down a filming trip to the Titanic wreck on an OceanGate submersible after it was deemed unsafe, his agent has revealed.
The former EastEnders star turned documentary maker was planning to take part in the deep diving mission last year for a programme to mark the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the ill-fated liner.
But an expert production company behind the documentary decided it was too risky to board the submersible after carrying out its own checks.
Kemp’s agent, InterTalent chairman Jonathan Shalit, said the production company deemed the vessel to be unsafe “on every level”.
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“We were told ‘it is unsafe, we are not going’ – that was a year ago,” Mr Shalit said.
“It is deeply sad for the families who have suffered such a terrible loss.”
He added: “I am relieved that Ross did not participate but I am obviously reassured by the professionalism of those companies we were working with that they didn’t suggest that he go on the submarine.
“The lesson to be learnt is do your checks thoroughly. By good fortune for us, the checks had been done thoroughly.”
On Thursday, Rear Admiral John Mauger – who led the search for the missing submersible – confirmed a remotely-operated vehicle had discovered the nose cone of the lost submersible about 487m (1,600ft) from the bow of the Titanic on the seafloor.
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‘I offer my deepest condolences’
Further debris was found nearby, with Rear Admiral Mauger adding: “In consultation with experts from within unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”
British billionaire Hamish Harding, UK-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, OceanGate founder Stockton Rush and French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet were on board.
Veteran explorer Josh Gates, who hosts Expedition Unknown on Discovery+, also revealed he turned down the chance to film on the doomed Titan submersible.
He tweeted that he had rejected the opportunity to film in 2021 because the vessel “did not perform well” during a test dive.
He wrote: “Ultimately, I walked away from a huge opportunity to film Titanic due to my safety concerns with the OceanGate platform.
“There’s more to the history and design of Titan that has not been made public – much of it concerning.”
Mr Sohnlein told Times Radio there had been a “rigorous test programme”.
He said: “I was involved in the early phases of the overall development programme during our predecessor subs to Titan, and I know from firsthand experience that we were extremely committed to safety, and risk mitigation was a key part of the company culture.”
Zayn Malik paid tribute to former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne as he kicked off his solo tour.
Payne died last month of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage” after falling from a third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires, according to a post-mortem.
Images from Leeds’s O2 Academy on Saturday showed Malik – who delayed his Stairway To The Sky tour due to Payne’s funeral on Wednesday – shared a tribute.
A message was displayed with a heart on a large blue screen behind the singer reading: “Liam Payne 1993-2024. Love you bro.”
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Rapper Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit that alleges he strangled a model on the set of a music video.
Warning: This story contains details that readers may find distressing
The lawsuit alleges the musician shoved his fingers in the claimant’s mouth at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City in 2010, in what it refers to as “pornographic gagging”, Sky News’ US partner network NBC News reported.
The model who brought the case – which was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York – was a background actor for another musician’s music video that Ye was guest-starring in, NBC said, citing the lawsuit.
She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the 47-year-old.
A representative for Ye was approached for comment by NBC News on Saturday.
The New York City Police Department said it took “sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors”.
The lawsuit alleges that a few hours into the shoot, the rapper arrived on set, took over control and ordered “female background actors/models, including the claimant, to line up in the hallway”.
The rapper is then believed to have “evaluated their appearances, pointed to two of the women, and then commanded them to follow him”.
The lawsuit adds the claimant, who was said to be wearing “revealing lingerie”, was uncomfortable but went with Ye to a suite which had a sofa and a camera.
When in the room, Ye is said to have ordered the production team to start playing the music, to which he did not know his lyrics and instead rambled, “rawr, rawr, rawr”.
The lawsuit claims: “Defendant West then pulled two chairs near the camera, positioned them across from each other, and instructed the claimant to sit in the chair in front of the camera.”
While stood over the model, the lawsuit clams Ye strangled her with both hands, according to NBC.
It claims he went on to “emulate forced oral sex” with his hands, with the rapper allegedly screaming: “This is art. This is f****** art. I am like Picasso.”
Universal Music Group is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant and is accused of failing to investigate the incident.
The corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NBC.
Jesse S Weinstein, a lawyer representing the claimant, said the woman “displayed great courage to speak out against some of the most powerful men and entities within the entertainment industry”.
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
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The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November