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Almost two years after the end of her conservatorship, Britney Spears is telling her story in her own words with the release of her memoir The Woman In Me.

Billed as a “brave and astonishingly moving” story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith and hope, the much-anticipated book gives an insight into her stage career, her relationship with Justin Timberlake, friendships with stars including Madonna and Paris Hilton, and her breakdown in 2007.

It also features details of the controversial 13-year conservatorship, which eventually ended after Spears, now 41, spoke out in court in a plea to be released.

She dedicates the book to her sons Sean and Jayden Federline, who are now aged 18 and 17 respectively: “For my boys, who are the loves of my life.”

Here are the key revelations from The Woman In Me.

Britney Spears on 01.02.1999 in München / Munich. | usage worldwide Photo by: Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
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Pic: Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP


Early life: ‘I was usually scared’

Spears describes an often difficult home life growing up in Kentwood, Louisiana, saying her mother Lynne and father Jamie “fought constantly”. She talks about his struggles with alcohol, which were also described during later conservatorship hearings. “I was usually scared in my home,” she says, and “nothing was ever good enough” for him.

“The saddest part to me was that what I always wanted was a dad who would love me as I was – somebody who would say ‘I just love you. You could do anything right now. I’d still love you with unconditional love.'”

Aged nine, after failing to get into the Mickey Mouse Club on her first audition because she was too young, she says she went back to Louisiana and worked in a seafood restaurant, “cleaning shellfish and serving plates of food while doing my prissy dancing in my cute little outfits”. By the age of 13, the star says she was drinking and smoking, and that she started driving at that age, too.

FILE - Britney Spears, left, and Justin Timberlake arrive at the 28th Annual American Music Awards in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2001. Spears' memoir "The Woman in Me" releases Oct. 24. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File, File)
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Pic: AP/Mark J Terrill

Relationship with Justin Timberlake: Cry Me A River to termination of pregnancy

After getting into the Mickey Mouse Club on her second attempt – a “boot camp for the entertainment industry” – Spears got to know fellow future stars including Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake.

She had her first kiss with him during a game of Truth Or Dare and that they later started dating as their careers launched, hers as a solo star and his with NSYNC. She says she was “so in love with him it was pathetic”.

Details of Spears having an abortion during their relationship were revealed prior to the book’s release, with Spears saying of the pregnancy: “For me, it wasn’t a tragedy. But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.”

The star admits cheating on Timberlake once but claims this came as she knew he had cheated on her several times. She talks about how it affected her when her cheating seemed to be referenced following their split in his Cry Me A River video. “In the news media, I was described as a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy. The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.”

Spears goes on to say there has “always been more leeway in Hollywood for men than for women … but I was shattered”. The video “shamed me”, she adds, and she felt there was “no way” to tell her side of the story.

However, when addressing how Timberlake once told an interviewer they had been in a sexual relationship, Spears defends her ex.

“Given that I had so many teenage fans, my managers and my press people had long tried to portray me as an eternal virgin – never mind that Justin and I had been living together, and I’d been having sex since I was 14.

“Was I mad at being ‘outed’ by him as sexually active? No. To be honest with you, I liked that Justin said that. Why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young-girl virgin even into my 20s. Whose business was it if I’d had sex or not?”

Britney Spears on 17.08.1999 in Chicago. | usage worldwide Photo by: Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
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Pic: Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP


The questions about her body and sex life

It is hard to imagine some of the questions Spears faced as a teenager and young woman at the start of her career being asked of stars today. In her book, she says she found it difficult to feel as “carefree” as Timberlake as “everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts, wanting to know whether or not I’d had plastic surgery”.

She goes on to write about the backlash to her appearance and dancing “that would last years”, saying: “I was never quite sure what all these critics thought I was supposed to be doing – a Bob Dylan impression? I was a teenage girl from the South. I signed my name with a heart. I liked looking cute. Why did everyone treat me, even when I was a teenager, like I was dangerous?”

She describes seeing “more and more older men” in the audiences for her shows, “and sometimes it would freak me out to see them leering at me like I was some kind of Lolita fantasy for them, especially when no one could seem to think of me as both sexy and capable, or talented and hot. If I was sexy, they seemed to think I must be stupid. If I was hot, I couldn’t possibly be talented”.

The star says she turned to religion – and prescription drugs. “Trying to find ways to protect my heart from criticism and to keep the focus on what was important, I started reading religious books… I also started taking Prozac.”

Irish actor Colin Farrell arrives with singer Britney Spears for the.premiere of the film, "The Recruit," January 28, 2003 in Hollywood,.California. Farrell stars with Al Pacino and Bridget Moynahan in the.film about the CIA and how trainees are recruited and trained for the.spy game. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith..RG/HB

Fling with Colin Farrell and Madonna’s mentorship and kiss

Spears was very publicly pictured with actor Colin Farrell in 2003 following her break-up with Timberlake. She says she thought he was handsome, found out he was shooting his film S.W.A.T, and drove to the set to introduce herself.

The star details attending the premiere of one of his other films, The Recruit, with Farrell, saying she accidentally wore a pyjama top which she thought was a shirt, and describes their brief two-week fling as like a “brawl”.

Spears says she was not over Timberlake at the time but “for a brief moment … I did think there could be something there” with Farrell.

The star says that she started to suffer from increasing anxiety as her fame grew and “it became clear to me that whatever I did – and even plenty I didn’t do – became front-page news”. During a difficult period, she says Madonna visited her and “probably had some intuitive sense of what I was going through”.

Madonna “did a red-string ceremony with me to initiate me into Kabbalah”, Spears says, and she went on to have a Hebrew word tattooed at the base of her neck.

“In many ways, Madonna did have a good effect on me,” she writes. “She told me I should be sure to take time out for my soul… She modelled a type of strength that I needed to see.”

Spears goes on to say Madonna was right to call out sexism and ageism in the industry in recent years, and then details how the pair, along with Christina Aguilera, ended up performing together at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003 – where they famously kissed on stage. Spears says she had wanted to create “a moment”.

A view of the Little White Wedding Chapel where pop star Britney Spears reportedly married childhood friend Jason Alexander in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 3, 2004. REUTERS/Steve Marcus PP04010005 SM

55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander

Spears recalls getting drunk with her childhood friend in Las Vegas in January 2004 but says she doesn’t remember much about the night itself. They watched films together, Mona Lisa Smile and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, before heading to A Little White Chapel. “When we got there, another couple was getting married, so we had to wait,” she says. “Yes – we waited in line to get married.”

Spears describes her family’s reaction, saying they flew out to Las Vegas the following day. “They made way too big a deal out of innocent fun,” she says. “I didn’t take it that seriously. I thought a goof-around Vegas wedding was something people might do as a joke. Then my family came and acted like I’d started World War III.”

The star says that while she knew she did not want to be with Alexander forever, the way she was “interrogated” made her want to “rebel”.

Britney Spears with her dog and Kevin Federline at the 2004 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas. Pic: AP
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Pic: AP

Suffering depression after childbirth

Spears went on to marry dancer Kevin Federline later in September 2004, and had sons Sean and Jayden in 2005 and 2006. “From the moment I saw him, there was a connection between us – something that made me feel like I could escape everything that was hard in my life,” she says of Federline.

But the singer says she suffered depression after Jayden was born. “I got a little depressed once I was no longer keeping them safe inside my body. They seemed so vulnerable out in the world of jockeying paparazzi and tabloids.

“I began to suspect that I was a bit overprotective when I wouldn’t let my mom hold Jayden for the first two months… Honestly, as a new mother, it was as if some part of me became the baby.”

Spears says she hopes her story might help others suffering. “I hope any new mothers reading this who are having a hard time will get help early… I now know that I was displaying just about every symptom of perinatal depression: sadness, anxiety, fatigue.”

Federline was away a lot, she says, and “no one was around to see me spiral – except every paparazzo in America”. She describes the photographers as “like an army of zombies trying to get in every second”.

Paris Hilton (L) presents the Best Pop Video award to Britney Spears for "Piece of Me" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles September 7, 2008.  REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni  (UNITED STATES)

Friendship with Hilton and shaving her head: ‘I was out of my mind with grief’

Spears says Hilton was “one of the people who was kindest to me” when she needed it following her split from Federline. She admits that this was the start of her “party stage” as the heiress encouraged her to have fun, but says “it was never as wild” as it was portrayed in the press.

Spears says she did not go out often but any occasion she did would make headlines. She says her drinking was never out of control but that her “drug of choice” was Adderall, which is used to treat ADHD. “It gave me a few hours of feeling less depressed,” she says, and goes on to say she “never had any interest in hard drugs”.

Amid a custody battle and following the death of her aunt from cancer at the beginning of 2007, Spears infamously shaved her head and the photos created headlines around the world. In her memoir, she says this came after a period in which she had not been able to see her sons “for weeks” and that paparazzi followed her as she “begged” to see them. Shaving her head, she says, “gave them some material”.

“Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me.”

Spears says that “everyone was scared” of her with her new look, but it was her way of “saying to the world: f*** you”. She was “tired” of being “the good girl”.

A few days later, Spears was pictured attacking a paparazzi photographer’s car with an umbrella. She describes how she “snapped” as he would not leave her along during “one of the worst moments of my whole life”.

She goes on to say that afterwards, she was embarrassed – and even sent the agency an apology note “mentioning that I’d been in the running for a dark film role, which was true, and that I wasn’t quite myself, which was also true”.

Jamie Spears, father of singer Britney Spears, leaves the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Oct. 24, 2012. Pic: AP
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Jamie Spears pictured in 2012. Pic: AP

Conservatorship: ‘I was like a child robot’

A lot of the book tackles the subject of Spears’s conservatorship, which controlled her life for 13 years. Writing about the start of the legal arrangement, the star says she “begged the court to appoint literally anyone else – and I mean anyone off the street would have been better – my father was given the job”.

She says the court was told “that I was demented, and I wasn’t even allowed to pick my own lawyer”. She had been admitted to hospital “against my will”, she says, and soon after she was informed that the conservatorship had been filed.

After this, she describes how sometimes she would be “smuggled a private phone”, but says she was “always caught”. And “the sad, honest truth” was that “after everything I had been through, I didn’t have a lot of fight left in me”. Spears says she “didn’t see a way out” and “felt my spirit retreat, and I went on autopilot”. She says she “went along with it” for her children.

“It’s difficult for me to revisit this darkest chapter of my life and to think about what might have been different if I’d pushed back harder then,” she says. “I don’t at all like to think about that, not whatsoever. I can’t afford to, honestly. I’ve been through too much.”

As she detailed in court in 2021, Spears describes being given daily medication and having her every move watched.
“If I was so sick that I couldn’t make my own decisions, why did they think it was fine for me to be out there smiling and waving and singing and dancing in a million time zones a week?” she writes. “I’ll tell you one good reason. The Circus Tour grossed more than $130m.”

She says she exchanged her freedom for time with her children. “It was a trade I was willing to make.”

Security would run background checks and do blood tests on any men she wanted to date, she says.

Spears says she “became a robot. But not just a robot – a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilised that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself… The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child.”

Britney Spears supporters outside the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on 12 November

#FreeBritney

Spears says she first started attempts to end the conservatorship in 2014, saying she went to court but the “case didn’t go anywhere”. She continues: “What followed was a cloak-and-dagger effort to get my own lawyer. I even mentioned the conservatorship on a talk show in 2016, but somehow, that part of the interview didn’t make it to the air. Huh. How interesting.”

On stage, she says she held back in an attempt to rebel. “I did the moves and I sang the notes, but I didn’t put the fire behind it that I had in the past. Toning down my energy onstage was my own version of a factory slowdown.”

At the end of her Las Vegas residency, Spears claims she was again hospitalised against her will, and that she was put on lithium. “I felt my concept of time morph, and I grew disoriented,” she says, adding that she felt like she was in “solitary confinement”. She says she came close to suicide during this period.

But she says it was during a stay in hospital that she first found out about the #FreeBritney movement. “The nurse showed me clips… fans saying they were trying to figure out if I was being held somewhere against my will, talking about how much my music meant to them and how they hated to think I was suffering now. They wanted to help. And just by doing that, they did help.”

Once she was home, she says she reported her father for alleged “conservatorship abuse” in June 2021. On getting to tell her story in court, she says she felt like she’d “finally been listened to” after 13 years. Speaking about the decision to end the legal arrangement, which came in November 2021, she says: “And now, finally, it was my own life.”

Britney Spears is reportedly marrying Sam Asghari today
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Pic: AP

Sam Asghari – and her message to fans

Spears describes meeting her now estranged husband Hesam (Sam) Asghari on the set for the video for her song Slumber Party, and says she was “instantly smitten”. The book went to print before their split earlier this year so there is no detail of their break-up. Spears says Asghari helped her believe she could do anything and that they wanted to have a baby – but as she said during her conservatorship court hearings, she had been fitted with an IUD – she alleges her father would not allow her to have it removed.

After the end of the conservatorship, she did become pregnant but miscarried. “I was devastated to have lost the baby. Once again, though, I used music to help me gain insight and perspective.

“Every song I sing or dance to lets me tell a different story and gives me a new way to escape. Listening to music on my phone helps me cope with the anger and sadness I face as an adult.”

She finishes the book by saying: “There’s been a lot of speculation about how I’m doing. I know my fans care. I am free now. I’m just being myself and trying to heal. I finally get to do what I want, when I want. And I don’t take a minute of it for granted…

“It’s been a while since I felt truly present in my own life, in my own power, in my womanhood. But I’m here now.”

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Scottish comedian Janey Godley dies aged 63

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Scottish comedian Janey Godley dies aged 63

Scottish comedian Janey Godley has died a month after she moved to a hospice for end-of-life care, her agent has said.

The 63-year-old, who found viral fame with her dubbed imitations of Nicola Sturgeon’s COVID-19 news briefings during the pandemic, had announced last month that she was receiving end-of-life care for terminal cancer.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our client Doctor Janey Godley on 2nd November,” her agent said on Saturday.

“Janey died peacefully in the wonderful Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow surrounded by her loved ones. She will be hugely missed by her family, friends and her many fans.

“She will be remembered for her legendary voice overs of Nicola Sturgeon during the pandemic, her hilarious and outspoken comedy, but most of all for just being ‘Janey’.”

Handout photo issued by Bafta of Janey Godley at the Bafta Scotland awards. Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwar and actress Glenda Jackson are among those to be honoured at a special socially-distanced Bafta Scotland night.
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Pic: BAFTA/PA

‘We got her longer because of all the support’

Her daughter comedian Ashley Storrie announced the news on social media, writing: “We got her longer because of all of the support and the love in the world.”

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She said in a short video: “I believe in my heart of hearts that she felt every bit of love you sent to her. And I think it kept her going.

“I think genuinely we got her longer because of all of the support and the love in the world. But that’s it over now. So, thank you once again and bye.”

She also revealed Godley had been awarded an honorary degree from the University Of Glasgow.

Ms Sturgeon, the former first minister, wrote on X: “Janey Godley truly was a force of nature, and one of the funniest people I have ever known.

“I was able to visit her in the hospice a couple of weeks ago and though she was fragile, she still had me in stitches.”

She added: “A bond was forged between us in the darkest days of COVID when her famous voiceovers of my daily briefings went viral. In the toughest of times, she made people laugh – and that was precious.

She did more that (sic) that though. In managing to project the serious public health messages of my briefings to a much wider audience than I would have managed alone, she helped save lives.”

Godley and Nicola Sturgeon pictured in 2023. Pic: PA
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Godley and Nicola Sturgeon pictured in 2023. Pic: PA

Paying tribute, Scottish First Minister John Swinney wrote on X: “Very sorry to hear of the death of Janey Godley.

“She brought joy and laughter on many occasions when we needed it most. My condolences to her family. May she Rest in Peace.”

That infamous Trump sign

In September, Godley cancelled her autumn tour titled Why Is She Still Here? due to her stage four ovarian cancer, which had been treated over the last few years, but had returned with added complications.

At the time, Godley said it was “devastating” to be facing the end of her life, adding “but we all come to an end sometime”.

She also joked: “I don’t know how long I’ve got left before anybody asks. I’m not a TikTok.”

In 2016, Godley went viral after protesting at Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort with her infamous “unwelcome” sign (Godley’s sign used slightly spicier language).

She then went on to gain attention during COVID times, voicing videos of Ms Sturgeon’s health briefings and became friends with the former first minister.

Pic: PA
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Pic: PA

Overcoming adversity

Born into poverty in the East End of Glasgow in 1961 to alcoholic parents, Godley left school aged 16 with no qualifications.

She revealed both she and her sister had been abused by an uncle as a child, for which he served a two-year sentence.

After 15 years running a pub with her husband during the 1980s and 1990s, she began her stand-up career in 1994, going on to co-present BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends, as well as fronting BBC Radio 4 series The C Bomb.

She also appeared on shows including Have I Got News For You, the Scottish soap opera River City, and crime drama Traces.

Godley with her daughter, comedian Ashley Storrie. Pic: PA
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Godley with her daughter, comedian Ashley Storrie. Pic: PA

Never shying away from joking about the darker side of life, in 2023, she won the inaugural Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Godley wrote her debut novel in 2022, a murder mystery titled Nothing Left Unsaid set in 1970s Glasgow. Warmly received, celebrity fans included TV chef Nigella Lawson who said it was so good, she read it in two sittings.

A fierce supporter of Scottish independence, Godley was also a vocal advocate of transgender rights, she continued campaigning on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community up until her death.

She leaves behind her husband of 44 years, Sean Storrie, and her daughter.

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Does the music stop when the bombs are falling?

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Does the music stop when the bombs are falling?

“You either hold a weapon or you hold a guitar,” says Raji El-Jaru, Gaza’s biggest rockstar.

Months before war broke out last year, hundreds of people packed into a concert hall to hear his band perform their distinct blend of pounding guitar riffs and impassioned lyrics.

“We’ll scream our pain; can you hear the call?” he sang to the rapt crowd. “Knock, knock, are you listening at all?”

Not long after that gig, Israeli airstrikes rained on Gaza City, tearing down buildings and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Focused on survival rather than music, the five members of Osprey V – believed to be Gaza’s first rock band – went from dreaming of gigging in Europe to wondering if they would ever play together again.

Formed back in 2015, the group are all self-taught and cite Metallica and Linkin Park among their influences. Raji, 32, explains that he has always seen rock music as the obvious way to resist oppression. “We are the voice of the voiceless, spreading love instead of hatred and violence.”

Live from Kyiv: Volodomyr aka Lostlojic
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Live from Kyiv: Volodomyr aka Lostlojic. Pic: Oleksandra Poparova

“It’s a matter of time now,” Volodymyr says, talking about when his name will be called to join Ukraine’s armed forces.

A DJ who goes by the moniker Lostlojic, before the full-scale invasion in 2022 he was flying around Europe playing his brand of electronic music but now he’s back in Kyiv, his hometown, performing to raise money for his friends on the frontline.

In the early days after the invasion there was discussion about whether club nights should continue, says 35-year-old Volodymyr, but people needed a break from thinking about war – not least the soldiers on leave from the battlefield.

“Many of my friends who are musicians are in the armed forces. They have no time to do their favourite thing. Once every few months they create some tracks, send them to me, and I play them out.”

Last weekend there was a day to celebrate the Ukrainian language, and Volodymyr incorporated samples of Ukrainian speech into his songs to mark it – an assertion of an identity that is under threat.

“Everything is about politics, you can’t be an artist without it.”

Ruth Daniel spoke about the role of music in conflict zones at Womex. Pic: Jacob Crawfurd
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Ruth Daniel spoke about the role of music in conflict zones at Womex. Pic: Jacob Crawfurd

“One of the things that music can do is unify people,” says Ruth Daniel. “It’s a way to give people a space to share what they’re going through.”

She is head of In Place Of War, an organisation that helps foster music and creativity in conflict zones. When bombs are falling all around you, she believes, music can act as a form of escapism and creative resistance.

Speaking to Sky News from the recent WOMEX (Worldwide Music Expo) conference in Manchester, she described how smartphones and social media make it easier than ever for those in conflict zones to write tracks and find an audience.

“I’ve seen people making music studios on the edge of checkpoints, making their own instruments, doing hip hop on street corners and making music with car sound systems.”

Gigs too, can be held anywhere, she says, giving an example of a club night she went to in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah.

“It was at a house – they basically turned the kitchen into a club. I remember leaving and there were lines and lines of police and army [soldiers] pointing guns.

“For me, the best music comes out of situations of difficulty. It’s not just art for art’s sake, it’s art with purpose and meaning.”

One of Mo Aziz's band members was recently killed in Sudan. Pic: Livv Edwards
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One of Mo Aziz’s band members was recently killed in Sudan. Pic: Livv Edwards

Mo Aziz once performed to tens of thousands of people in stadiums across Sudan as part of the popular group Igd al-Jalad. But the group’s music criticised the then-government and they were banned from performing amid a crackdown on expression.

He came to the UK as a refugee in 2017, and this year released an album calling for peace in his homeland and hoping to raise the profile of Sudanese music – traditionally a blend of African and Arabic influences.

Since the struggle for power between the army and a large militia group erupted into armed conflict in April 2023, more than 20,000 people have been killed in Sudan. There are firefights on the streets of Khartoum and a humanitarian crisis.

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Mo’s mother and brother fled to Egypt, making a fortnight-long journey to escape the conflict, as the fighting led to millions being displaced.

“I was devastated,” he said. “I lost three friends as a result of the bombing in Khartoum, including one member of Igdal-Jalad.”

This unfolded as Mo was working on his album and master’s degree at Liverpool Hope University.

“I hope to show what’s happening in Sudan as well as uplift Sudanese music and put it on the international scene,” he said. “I will always dedicate my work to peace and human rights.”

Saeed Gadir seeks to tell stories through his music
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Saeed Gadir seeks to tell stories through his music. Pic: Sequoia Ziff

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Meanwhile, British-Sudanese folk singer-songwriter Saeed Gadir described the music scene in Khartoum as a “ghost town”.

“It’s really been decimated, there’s no one there. It’s a huge part of my writing,” says Saeed, who’s known as The Halfway Kid and whose new album Myths In Modern Life talks about growing up in a Sudanese migrant family.

And while he doesn’t see himself as always being explicitly political, his music is nonetheless politicised by the stories he tells and feelings he seeks to share with his audiences, he says.

“Even if you’re in London, you might get an insight into what it might feel like if there’s a coup back home.”

Read more:
Gaza situation ‘disastrous’ – UN
Millions of Sudanese displaced by war now face a new fight

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson in Sarajevo in 1994. Pic: Reuters
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Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson in Sarajevo in 1994. Pic: Reuters

Sometimes there is no safe way to explore music in a dangerous place, sometimes the bombs are falling around you even as amps are plugged in and microphones set up.

That was the case in 1994, before the internet gave musicians the power to appear virtually to their fans. Back then, legendary metal singer Bruce Dickinson and his band Skunkworks were smuggled into Sarajevo during the Bosnian War while the city was under siege. The gig they played instantly became historic.

“I’d never seen devastation like it in a modern city. There wasn’t a single building that wasn’t a burnt-out shell,” Dickinson, best known as the lead singer of Iron Maiden, told the 2017 documentary Scream For Me Sarajevo.

The siege of Sarajevo was the longest in modern history, lasting nearly four years. More than 11,000 people, including over 1,000 children, were killed.

“I went out there and was just, like, how can I ever be as big as their lives need me to be for them?” recalled Dickinson.

“You could have given everything and you just felt like it wasn’t ever gonna be enough.”

Raji al-Jaru and his band have a new video coming out soon
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Raji El-Jaru and his band have a new video coming out soon. Pic: Mohammed Al Nateel

All over the world, the musical tradition of building community – and resistance – in some of the world’s most dangerous places is thriving, thanks in part to social media and the ability to reach audiences around the world with live streams.

“Especially in places where people can’t get out or people can’t go in,” Ruth says. “And so that becomes the most important way of sharing people’s culture and identities.”

Still unable to return home, Raji has continued his work on Osprey V. A new video, produced in the Gaza Strip, is out soon and he hopes it will be a wakeup call to the West.

“We are normal people just like you,” he says. “We have families, we drink coffee, we wear Adidas. But we are suffering from endless wars.”

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Jeff Bridges on The Old Man – and instilling joy on set

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Jeff Bridges on The Old Man - and instilling joy on set

Life in between filming the first and second series of The Old Man has been vastly different for Jeff Bridges.

The Oscar-winning actor led the first season of the action thriller at 70, seemingly healthy and ready to take on the world. However, unbeknown to him at the time, he had undiagnosed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and a 9×12 inch tumour in his stomach, which would require intense treatment.

Rather than the often used language of “fighting” the cancer, Bridges described himself as being “in surrender mode” as he not only went through chemotherapy but also contracted COVID-19.

Jeff Bridges in The Old Man. Pic: Kurt Iswarienko/FX/Disney+
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Jeff Bridges returns in The Old Man. Pic: Kurt Iswarienko/FX/Disney+

However, he set himself the goal of walking his daughter down the aisle, which he did in 2021, and has since said his tumour has been reduced to “the size of a marble”.

Now, The Big Lebowski actor has returned to the small screen for the second season of Disney+ show The Old Man, which tells the story of a former CIA operative on the run and also stars Conclave’s John Lithgow and Blink Twice actress Alia Shawkat.

(L-R) Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow in The Old Man. Pic: Kurt Iswarienko/FX/Disney+
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John Lithgow (right) co-stars alongside Bridges. Pic: Kurt Iswarienko/FX/Disney+

Despite a vast career in film, this is Bridges’ first time leading a TV series – a format he saw his father Lloyd Bridges excel in when he was a child.

“With movies, you have a beginning, middle and an end,” he tells Sky News. “You know where you’re going. That’s not the case in the series, it’s exciting.”

The American actor says he makes an effort to instil “joy” and kindness on his sets, crediting his father’s love for the art of acting for why he remains so positive.

“I mean, he taught me all the basics of acting and he, unlike a lot of parents who are in showbiz, wanted all his kids to go into showbusiness. He loved it so much.”

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Bridges has appeared on screen since he was just six months old and would leave school to join his father on the set of his series.

“The way he approached his work with such joy [was admirable] and that was the main thing I learned from him… Whenever he came on the set, that joy was kind of contagious and everybody would say, hey, this is kind of fun, what we’re doing to get to play, dance, pretend here with all these great folks and we can have a good time.”

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Bridges says he was lucky to work with his father a few times as an adult and that the ability to create a relaxing and fun environment that allowed artists to flourish was something he wanted to replicate in his own work.

On set, he meets with every creative taking part in his films and shows, from costume designers to the production team.

“That’s such an important aspect of my work, getting a perspective from their take… all these things start to come together and they have a cumulative effect on how your character comes off, and they’re thinking of it from a completely different point of view.

“That’s very valuable to me, you know, to hear the history, why the person got that particular piece of clothing and what not.”

Season two of The Old Man is available to stream on Disney+ from 6 November.

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