Her name is synonymous with beauty, style and running late.
And when THE Supermodel that is Naomi Campbell arrived for our interview she didn’t disappoint in all three categories.
My crew were told to set up for 1pm for a 2.45pm interview, she entered the ballroom at the Dorchester at 5.45pm.
In the moments before her arrival her team made several visits to inquire if we were ready as she was definitely on her way.
Then suddenly the gilded mirrored double doors swung open and in she sauntered.
Campbell was a little preoccupied on her phone as her attendants in waiting preened, polished and perfected her look but as soon as the camera started rolling she enthused about her groundbreaking exhibition at the V&A entitled NAOMI: In Fashion.
Image: A young Campbell on the runway
Image: Inside the supermodel’s upcoming exhibition
Image: Campbell is launching an exhibition at the V&A Museum reflecting on her career as a supermodel
It’s the first of its kind and explores her 40-year career as a fashion model, her cultural icon status and the fact that four decades on she is still a highly sought-after working model.
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Campbell tells me it’s an honour to be the sole subject of the exhibition, that she is totally in awe and feels very blessed.
She follows in the footsteps of David Bowie, Frida Kahlo and Kylie, who have also had solo exhibitions at the London museum.
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The 54-year-old’s hope is that through the clothes that she’s worn, the designers she’s collaborated with, the photos that have been taken and the activism she’s displayed, visitors to the exhibition will come to understand her as a person, in her own words.
She says she wants people “to see the workmanship, the creatives that I got to work with after these four decades, and the story, the narrative and to understand me as a person more, coming from me”.
“You know I never normally do that. I’m going to show things that I’ve never shown,” she adds.
Image: Campbell’s new museum exhibition is a journey through her esteemed career as a model
Image: Campbell is known to have worn a number of iconic outfits down the runway
The collection will comprise of pieces taken from different points in her career. It will include around 100 looks from the best of global high fashion including the pair of staggeringly high Vivienne Westwood platform shoes which she famously fell in while walking the catwalk in 1993.
“You know what? God bless her. May she rest in peace. I love Vivienne Westwood. Loved her, loved her, loved her,” Campbell says, remembering the designer behind the iconic shoes.
“She was a woman of integrity and did not suffer fools. And she kept her dignity to the very end in terms of staying true to who she was.
“And I loved her for it. Those were her signature shoes and if you didn’t know how to walk in them, then learn.
“That was a lesson to me, never rest on your laurels Naomi. Just because you can walk in other heels it doesn’t mean you can walk in those.
“I thought I could and I learned the hard way, I couldn’t, and I went down.”
Image: The famous Vivienne Westwood heels that Campbell fell in
The fall, far from blighting her career actually added to her star factor because of the way she handled it, giggling on the floor of the catwalk.
In her time she’s had to negotiate far greater challenges than foot-high heels.
She was the first black woman to appear as a model on the covers of Time and Vogue France and has made it her mission to champion diversity in the fashion industry.
Campbell has openly spoken about racism and the challenges she has faced as a black woman.
“It’s like a way of life because you become conditioned in a way to know you have to deal with it to the point where you could pre-empt and kind of be pro-active to get it out of the way and I found that a lot of things I dealt with that way,” she says.
“I would see it coming so I was going to find a way to go around it, go over it, get through it.
“And that’s what I did.”
Image: Campbell walking a runway in Milan, Italy, in 2012. Pic: AP
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Campbell says that as long as she has anything to do with the fashion business she will stand up for diversity although she believes that recently it has taken a step back.
“We are in a different time where people feel they can come out and just say how they feel whether you like it or not.”
Image: Naomi Campbell spoke to Sky News about her upcoming V&A exhibition
On her longevity in an industry where many of her peers have long since hung up their heels, Campbell says she doesn’t know why she is still gliding down the world’s catwalks, but what she does know is that there was never a strategy.
“I got to be a part of this real big fantasy. Some people think that our industry is just not real, it’s very real and it is a billion-dollar business.”
The exhibition NAOMI: In Fashion runs until 6 April 2025 at the V&A.
Image: Liverpool’s captain Virgil van Dijk. Pic: Reuters
Image: Liverpool’s Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo (right) arrive at the funeral of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva. Pic: PA
Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.
His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.
Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.
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Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.
Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.
Image: Manchester United and Portugal player Bruno Fernandes. Pic: PA
Image: Liverpool’s captain Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool’s player Andrew Robertson. Pic: Reuters
Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.
Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.
‘More than a friend’
In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”
Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”
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Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.
‘With us forever’
Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.
“Their spirit will be with us forever.”
The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.
He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.
“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”
The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.
No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.
Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.
Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.
MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.
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6:36
Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.
“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.
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“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.
“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”
Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.
The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.
Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.
“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”
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“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.
“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”
The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.
Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.
Image: Diogo Jota’s wife Rute Cardoso arrives for the funeral of him and his brother Andre Silva. Pic: Reuters
Image: Liverpool players Virgil van Dijk and Andrew Robertson arrive for the funeral. Pic: Reuters
Image: Van Dijk carried a wreath with Jota’s number 20 while Andrew Robertson’s had a 30 for Andre Silva. Pic: Reuters
Image: Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk. Pic: Reuters
Image: Portugal player Ruben Neves arrives at the funeral. Pic: PA
Image: Liverpool’s Joe Gomez and manager Arne Slot arrive at the funeral of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva. Pic; PA
Image: Liverpool’s Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo (right) arrive at the funeral of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva
Image: Manchester City and Portugal player Bernardo Silva arrives at the funeral. Pic: AP
Image: The coffins are carried to the church. Pic: PA
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2:27
Miguell Rocha played with Jota for around ten years with Gondomar Sport Clube in Portugal.
Image: People line up to enter the church. Pic: AP
Image: Pallbearers carry the coffins of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva
Image: Pic: Reuters
Image: Pic: AP
Image: People gather outside the Chapel of the Resurrection. Pic: Reuters
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The former captain was seen wiping away tears as he read messages and laid his tribute down.
Image: Fans pay their respects outside Anfield in Liverpool. Pic: Reuters
Image: A board with a picture of Diogo Jota outside Anfield Stadium. Pic: PA
Image: The coffins are carried to the church. Pic: PA