Actor Jeremy Strong has said Donald Trump calling those involved with his new film The Apprentice “human scum” is “all the more reason” cinemagoers should go and see it.

Ahead of the UK release of the biopic which depicts the presidential candidate’s rise as a New York property developer back in the 1970s, Strong told Sky News: “We all knew we were playing with fire getting involved with [this], but it also felt just supremely important and meaningful to try and understand and tell the story about how Donald Trump became who he is now.”

While Marvel actor Sebastian Stan plays Mr Trump, the Succession star plays notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, a mentor of sorts to Mr Trump, whom it’s claimed taught him power plays like denying everything and to “attack, attack, attack”.

“As a film I think it stands on its own but there are also things in it that I think a lot of the American public certainly don’t know about and, because of the stakes right now, it would behove everyone to become informed about where this is all coming from and how we got here,” Strong insisted.

Co-written by Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman who has penned biographies on both Mr Trump and Mr Cohn, not only does the film show the former president having cosmetic surgery and popping diet pills – most controversially it depicts him raping his first wife Ivana.

An incident based on an assault that was detailed in her divorce deposition – a claim she recanted years later.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations.

After premiering at the Cannes Film Festival at the start of this year, lawyers for Mr Trump unsuccessfully filed a cease and desist notice to the team behind the film.

This week, in a 1am rant on his Truth Social app on Monday, Mr Trump called the film “FAKE and CLASSLESS”.

Referring to those involved as “human scum”, he hit out at the timing of the movie’s release, calling the film a “cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job” aimed at thwarting his re-election attempts.

“I feel very proud of being part of this film,” Strong said.

“It’s also unsettling to be kind of, you know, at the sharp end of the spear and intersecting with history and politics in this moment… for Trump to call us ‘human scum’ is a heavy thing but also, to me, the fact that he felt compelled to do that is just all the more reason why I think it’s essential for people to see it.”

Read more from Sky News:
Man rescued after months at sea
Olivia Rodrigo falls in stage hole during show
Nine monkeys die in two days at zoo

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

Strong claims Mr Trump’s early morning post is exactly what his character Mr Cohn would advise, “always attack, deny everything and never admit defeat”.

Strong explained: “The veracity of the film, that he’s attacking us, once you start to see the playbook and you realise what these tactics are, you see that it permeates literally everything that [Mr Trump] does.”

The Apprentice is released in the UK & Ireland on 18 October.

American pop star Olivia Rodrigo has reassured fans that she’s “ok” after falling into a hole in the stage during a show in Melbourne.

The singer and actress was performing at the Rod Laver Arena on Monday during her Guts World Tour.

As she ran back and forth, greeting cheering fans, she fell into the hole, vanishing from view, eliciting screams from the crowd.

However, she quickly climbed back out from the hole, and said: “That was fun. I’m OK. Sometimes there’s just a hole in the stage! That’s all right. OK. Where was I?”

Videos circulated online of the incident, and the singer herself even shared it on her TikTok with the hashtag #subtleforeshadowing, commenting: “I am ok hahaha.”

The hashtag is used on videos where a mistake or accident is edited to repeat randomly throughout a clip.

Read more from Sky News:
Mrs Brown’s Boys star apologises for racial joke
Liam Gallagher brands Oasis sketch ‘excruciating’
‘Cheating’ probe at conker championships

The singer is currently embarking on a world tour which began in the US in February and later saw her perform in front of over 50,000 fans in Manila, the Philippines.

She is set to return to the UK, to the Co-op Live arena in Manchester in June and July next year, after her initial dates were postponed due to issues with the new venue.

A terminally ill woman from Utah has died after her online appeal for support for her young children raised more than $1m.

Erika Diarte-Carr, 30, described being “ashamed and embarrassed for people to know the truth” about her contracting small cell lung cancer (SCLC) after she kept it a secret, but was facing a “major financial burden”.

In June, the mother of two posted an appeal on the GoFundMe website. She said: “I’ve never been good at accepting or asking for help but… I am no longer able to physically work”.

Ms Carr said she was diagnosed in May 2022 with stage 4 terminal cancer and then in January 2024 with Cushing Syndrome, a hormone condition that caused weight gain and muscle loss.

She posted that Jeremiah, 7, and Aaliyah, 5, were her “whole life, light and soul,” adding “my children are my fight and what keep me going”.

On 18 September, another update said that she had been given three months to live. “I have decided to discontinue treatments as they will no longer help,” she wrote, adding that she wanted to raise $5,000 (£3,825) to cover her funeral costs and “leave something behind for my babies”.

On Saturday, Ms Carr’s death was confirmed by her cousin in a post on Facebook.

By Tuesday the total raised via GoFundMe topped nearly $1.2m (£918,000).

“She fought a long and hard battle. She was strong and held on as long as she could for her babies. I know she was so thankful for all of your support and love and prayers,” her cousin wrote.

Read more from Sky News:
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces extra sex assault allegations
Nine monkeys die in two days at zoo
World Conker Championships investigates cheating

An update posted on GoFundMe on 3 October – a few days before she died – thanked people for their “love and support” and generous donations.

“Me and the kids are now able to plan one big trip as a family that will leave them with memories that’ll last a lifetime,” Ms Carr wrote.

“I can promise you that your help is going to keep my kids financially stable the rest of their lives as I am putting it all into a trust fund for them.”

It is not clear whether she was able to complete the planned trip before she died.

Cancer Research UK describes small cell lung cancer as making up about one in seven (15%) lung cancers, which tend to spread quite early on.