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This Morning has been nominated for best daytime show at the National Television Awards (NTAs) despite months of scandal following Phillip Schofield’s departure and rumours of a “toxic” environment on the show.

Schofield, 61, resigned from ITV in May after admitting to an “unwise but not illegal” relationship with a younger male colleague on the show. He was also dropped by his agent, and as an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust.

Alison Hammond
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Alison Hammond is up for best presenter

An external review over Schofield’s departure from This Morning and claims of toxicity and bullying behind the scenes is now understood to be in process.

This Morning will be defending its title after scooping the trophy last year, despite the “queuegate” controversy at the time over claims Schofield and Holly Willoughby jumped the line to see Queen Elizabeth 11 lying in state (they both denied the claims).

It will defend its title in the daytime category against The Chase, Loose Women and The Repair Shop.

Meanwhile Schofield’s former co-presenter, Holly Willoughby, and who has continued to present the show with a series of co-stars, has missed out on a best presenter nomination for a second year running.

Instead, Alison Hammond – who has seen her presenting roster on the show expand since Schofield’s departure – has received a nod for the coveted award.

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Hammond will be up against Ant & Dec, Bradley Walsh, Martin Lewis and Claudia Winkleman.

Ant & Dec have won the prize a whopping 21 times in a row, but Winkleman is favourite to win this year following the success of The Traitors (which is also up for best reality competition).

Perennially popular, McPartlin and Donnelly are also in the running for the Bruce Forsyth entertainment award with two nominations, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and Saturday Night Takeaway.

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There are two touching posthumous nominations, with Paul O’Grady’s For The Love Of Dogs up for best factual entertainment show and Dame Deborah James’ Bowelbabe In Her Own Words up for best authored documentary.

For The Love Of Dogs is up against Clarkson’s Farm, Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out and The Martin Lewis Money Show Live.

While Bowelbabe In Her Own Words will take on Lewis Capaldi’s How I’m Feeling Now, Matt Willis: Fighting Addiction and Rob Burrow: Living With MND.

In a new category this year, Piers Morgan is nominated for the TV interview prize for Piers Morgan Uncensored on Talk TV, alongside Louis Theroux Interviews…, The Chris & Rosie Ramsey Show and The Graham Norton Show.

Just one man is nominated in the drama performance category – James Norton – who is up against his Happy Valley co-star and Sarah Lancashire, Vera’s Brenda Blethyn and Call the Midwife’s Judy Parfitt, as well as India Amarteifio for her role in Bridgerton prequel Queen Charlotte.

The Happy Valley finale – which was a national watercooler moment – is also in the running for the returning drama prize, alongside Stranger Things, Call The Midwife and Vera.

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The son of late reality star Jade Goody, Bobby Brazier, is nominated in the newcomer category for his role as Freddie Slater in EastEnders, alongside Benjamin Chivers for The Devil’s Hour, Channique Sterling-Brown for Coronation Street and Emmerdale’s Lewis Cope.

Brazier has recently been announced as a contestant on the forthcoming Strictly Come Dancing series.

Sky’s Brassic, Ted Lasso on Apple TV+, E4’s Young Sheldon and BBC’s Ghosts are all up for best comedy.

Billed as “television’s biggest night of the year,” the NTAs are voted for by the public, with winners announced at the ceremony hosted by Joel Dommett at The O2 on Tuesday 5 September.

Full list of NTA nominations

New Drama

1. Beyond Paradise

2. Blue Lights

3. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story

4. Wednesday

Reality Competition

1. Love Island

2. Race Across the World

3. SAS: Who Dares Wins

4. The Traitors

Authored Documentary

1. Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words

2. Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now

3. Matt Willis: Fighting Addiction

4. Rob Burrow: Living with MND

Returning Drama

1. Call the Midwife

2. Happy Valley

3. Stranger Things

4. Vera

TV Presenter

1. Alison Hammond

2. Ant & Dec

3. Bradley Walsh

4. Claudia Winkleman

5. Martin Lewis

Factual

1. Clarkson’s Farm

2. Paul O’Grady: For The Love Of Dogs

3. Sort Your Life Out

4. The Martin Lewis Money Show Live

Drama Performance

1. Brenda Blethyn, DCI Vera Stanhope, Vera

2. India Amarteifio, Young Queen Charlotte, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story

3. James Norton, Tommy Lee Royce, Happy Valley

4. Judy Parfitt, Sister Monica Joan, Call The Midwife

5. Sarah Lancashire, Catherine Cawood, Happy Valley

The Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award

1. Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway

2. Gogglebox

3. I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

4. The Masked Singer

Serial Drama

1. Coronation Street

2. EastEnders

3. Emmerdale

4. Hollyoaks

TV Interview

1. Louis Theroux Interviews…

2. Piers Morgan Uncensored

3. The Chris & Rosie Ramsey Show

4. The Graham Norton Show

Serial Drama Performance

1. Charlotte Jordan, Daisy Midgeley, Coronation Street

2. Danielle Harold, Lola Pearce-Brown, EastEnders

3. Dominic Brunt, Paddy Kirk, Emmerdale

4. Maureen Lipman, Evelyn Plummer, Coronation Street

Quiz Game Show

1. Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel

2. Richard Osman’s House Of Games

3. The 1% Club

4. The Chase Celebrity Special

Rising Star

1. Benjamin Chivers, Isaac, The Devil’s Hour

2. Bobby Brazier, Freddie Slater, EastEnders

3. Channique Sterling-Brown, Dee-Dee Bailey, Coronation Street

4. Lewis Cope, Nicky Milligan, Emmerdale

Daytime

1. Loose Women

2. The Chase

3. The Repair Shop

4. This Morning

Comedy

1. Brassic

2. Ghosts

3. Ted Lasso

4. Young Sheldon

Talent Show

1. Britain’s Got Talent

2. Strictly Come Dancing

3. The Great British Bake Off

4. The Great British Sewing Bee

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‘Love you bro’: Zayn Malik’s tribute to Liam Payne at first show since former bandmate’s death

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'Love you bro': Zayn Malik's tribute to Liam Payne at first show since former bandmate's death

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.”

The 31-year-old also previously postponed the US leg of the tour after the “heartbreaking loss”.

He later rescheduled the Edinburgh shows, which had been planned for 20 and 21 November, to December due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

Following Payne’s death, Malik said he “never got to thank” him for his support during some of the “most difficult” times.

“I will cherish all the memories I have with you in my heart forever,” he said in a post on Instagram.

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Malik rose to fame in 2010 when Simon Cowell teamed him up with Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan on talent show The X Factor.

Malik left the band in 2015 and all members went on to pursue their own solo careers.

An investigation has been launched into Payne’s death by prosecutors and three people have been charged in connection with the incident.

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Kanye West accused of sexual assault on set of music video in new lawsuit

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Kanye West accused of sexual assault on set of music video in new lawsuit

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.”

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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”.

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Joy star James Norton on the ‘postcode lottery’ of IVF – and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first ‘test-tube baby’

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Joy star James Norton on the 'postcode lottery' of IVF - and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first 'test-tube baby'

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.

James Norton stars in Joy. Pic: Kerry Brown/ Netflix
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In the UK, statistics show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade

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.”

Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. Pic: Netflix/ Kerry Brown
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Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. All pics: Netflix/ Kerry Brown

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.

The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.

James Norton and Thomasin McKenzie star in Joy. Pic: Kerry Brown/ Netflix
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Norton portrays scientist Bob Edwards, while McKenzie plays embryologist Jean Purdy

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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“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.”

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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

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