An “ultimate” version of Band Aid’s famous festive hit Do They Know It’s Christmas? is set to be released to mark the song’s 40th anniversary, featuring the voices of original singers as well as younger artists.

The track will feature voices from Band Aid 1984 including George Michael, Sting and Boy George, alongside the likes of Harry Styles, Chris Martin, the Sugababes, and Ed Sheeran, who appeared on the Band Aid 20 and Band Aid 30 versions in 2004 and 2014.

It will also feature the vocals of a young Bono, who recorded the song’s famous line – “Well tonight thank God it’s them, instead of you” – singing with his older self.

The singers will be backed by the Band Aid house band of Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, Duran Duran’s John Taylor, Phil Collins, Queen’s Roger Taylor, Supergrass’s Danny Goffey, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, Paul Weller, Damon Albarn, Midge Ure, Gary Kemp and Justin Hawkins.

Other voices to feature on the 40th anniversary remix include Sam Smith, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Rita Ora, Bananarama, Seal, Sinead O’Connor, Robbie Williams, Kool And The Gang and Underworld, with proceeds going to the Band Aid Trust.

And in a new video, the late David Bowie will introduce the song’s stars, with newsreader Michael Buerk’s BBC report on the song also featuring.

The history of Band Aid

Led by Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof and Ultravox’s Ure, the original Band Aid single saw artists join forces in 1984 to help charities working with starving children in Ethiopia.

The song went straight to the top of the charts that year and at the time held the record as the fastest-selling single of all time in the UK, selling a million copies in the first week alone.

It remained at number one for five weeks and went on to sell more than three million copies.

The movement led to the famous Live Aid concerts around the world the following year, with artists including Queen, Bowie and Sir Elton John performing at Wembley in the UK.

Do They Know It’s Christmas? was released again with different generations of stars over the decades, to raise money for other causes.

In 1989, Stock Aitken and Waterman produced Band Aid II, featuring just two of the artists from the song’s first iteration – Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward of Bananarama.

Band Aid 20 raised funds for Sudan’s Darfur region, while the 30th anniversary supported those helping throughout the 2014 Ebola crisis.

Read more:
Like A Virgin at 40: How Madonna defined an era
Happy Mondays: ‘We used to tout our own tickets’

In celebration of this monumental “instrument of change”, producer Trevor Horn has taken the recordings and blended all the voices “into one seamless whole”, organisers said.

The Do They Know It’s Christmas – 2024 Ultimate Mix will premiere on UK breakfast radio and streaming on 25 November, the 40th anniversary of the day artists went into the recording studio to create the original song. It will also be released physically on CD and vinyl on 29 November.

It will feature on a compilation also including the other recordings, plus the Live Aid Wembley 1985 version.

Artist Sir Peter Blake, 93, who designed the original sleeve – featuring a collage of Christmas card images alongside a hungry child – has returned to create the new cover.

British author Samantha Harvey has won this year’s Booker Prize with her book Orbital.

The novel, which is about astronauts on the International Space Station as they orbit the Earth, was announced as the winner at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in the City of London on Tuesday.

It has sold around 29,000 copies – more than the last three Booker winners combined had managed before they won.

Accepting the trophy, Harvey dedicated it to everybody who “speaks for and not against the earth” and “for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life and all the people who speak for and call for and work for peace”.

The former museum worker turned author said before winning that she would like to spend the £50,000 prize money on taking time out of her job to sculpt, and waste some of it on buying “expensive Danish liquorice”.

Harvey, who was longlisted for the prestigious literary prize in 2009 for her debut novel The Wilderness, is the 19th woman to win since the first award in 1969. There have been 36 male winners.

Admitting that she nearly gave up writing the novel altogether, Harvey said: “I lost my nerve with it.

“[I] originally thought, ‘Why on earth would anybody want to hear from a woman at her desk in Wiltshire writing about space, imagining what it’s like being in space when people have actually been there’.”

Taking place over a 24-hour time frame as astronauts orbit the Earth 16 times, Orbital is the second-shortest book to claim the prize at 136 pages long.

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

Artist and chairman of the judges Edmund de Waal described the book as one that “compelled” the judging panel.

“We were determined to find a book that moved us, a book that had capaciousness and resonance, that we are compelled to share,” he said.

“We wanted everything. Orbital is our book. With her language of lyricism and acuity, Harvey makes our world strange and new for us.

“Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition.”

This year, a record number of women were shortlisted for the Booker, with five nominated in total.

Earlier on Tuesday, all the shortlisted authors – Yael van der Wouden, Rachel Kushner, Anne Michaels, Charlotte Wood, Percival Everett and Harvey – attended a reception with the Queen, her first public engagement since falling ill with a chest infection.

A post on the royal family X account later shared a statement from Queen Camilla which congratulated Harvey on her win.

Selena Gomez says she felt recognised as an actor when taking part in her new film Emilia Perez.

The Emmy-nominated actress stars in the drama musical which follows four women as they find their paths to the lives they have always wanted.

She tells Sky News acting in Spanish was a joyful challenge.

“It was very exciting. I’m not completely fluent, so for me, it was really incredible to be able to even just be around people who were speaking it. I found it to be a very proud moment for sure.”

The 31-year-old first began her acting career in 2002 after securing the role of Gianna in Barney & Friends alongside her future Princess Protection Program co-star Demi Lovato.

But it was her lead role as Alex Russo in Wizards of Waverly Place that cemented her position as a prominent figure in the industry and paved the way for the artist to pursue film, TV shows and a hugely successful music career.

Leaving the children’s TV channel in 2012, she decided to take on a role in the coming-of-age film Spring Breakers.

She says being in the project with Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and James Franco felt like the first time she was making something for her and not any external responsibilities she may have had at the time.

“I was only 18. It was a very odd choice for me at the time because I had just finished working on my show and I had this freedom.

“So in a way I felt like I could rebel. And even though my character is pretty safe in the movie, it was just enough for me to get this hunger for art, for abstract and crazy colours and cinematography. It just became addicting.”

Since then, the creative has secured four Emmy nominations for acting and executive producing, two Grammy nominations for her music and has amassed a reported net worth of over $1bn through her make-up brand Rare Beauty.

She is also the second most followed person on Instagram, behind Cristiano Ronaldo.

Now starring in the Jacques Audiard film Emilia Perez, Gomez says she’s grateful for the path she has had in the industry and feels more “confident” to pursue roles that challenge her skills as an actor.

Read more from Sky News:
BBC announces details of Gary Lineker’s new contract
Yale University introduces course on Beyonce

“I definitely don’t have any regrets. I genuinely think if anything, doing this movie has given me a little bit of a pat on the back and I felt encouraged.

“I feel eager and excited to go for material that I don’t think people would typically expect of me.”

Emilia Perez

The Spanish-language musical is set in Mexico and also stars Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon and Adriana Paz.

Told through a mix of film genres, it follows a drug lord who wants to transition from male to female and her life afterward.

Zoe Saldana, one of the highest grossing actors of all time, says she’ll “never regret being a superhero” but being in this project allowed her to focus on the type of filmmaking she always wanted to do.

“Jacques Audiard is very much aligned with the kind of art that I like to consume, and I like to wish to be a part of.

“So for my career in Marvel and for [Selena’s] in Disney, to deliver us full circle to work with someone that we grew up sort of admiring, it means that the whole road was worth it every step along the way.”

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

She added: “I never had the opportunity to reconnect with Spanish in my work through my craft because in my everyday life, as soon as these cameras go off, I’m only in Spanish. So I was happy.”

The Avatar star says she’s aware the film is “a niche of a niche of a niche” project and hopes people are “curious enough to watch this”.

“People are really taking to it and it just goes to show that it is good to bet on yourself and if the choices that you are making in your life are done with an open heart and their heart driven and you’re winning, then stay on that path.”

Emilia Perez is streaming on Netflix now.