Balotelli pal found dead
A FRIEND of football star Mario Balotelli has been found stabbed to death in a London flat.
A woman arrested on suspicion of murdering Mayowa Ogunbayo, 29, has been freed on bail. HAVING hit her 60th birthday, Dawn French reckons it might be time to slow down.
But before her fans start panicking, the star has no intention of retiring – she only wants to pause to draw breath.
Dawn said: “I don’t want to be 60 and not have stopped a bit.
“I’ve taught myself to slow down. I’m still too busy and I have to remember sometimes to stop in the moment, lie down, look up and be quiet for a minute.
“That’s when creative thoughts happen and when I’m at my most open to new thinking. That can’t happen when you’re clattering around in your own head.”
Dawn is among Britain’s best-loved comedy actresses, star of The Vicar of Dibley, one half of comedy duo French and Saunders, acclaimed author and chocolateloving national treasure.
And she has never been more content – still busy with work and settled in her second marriage.
It’s clear that family is everything to Dawn, who has an adopted daughter Billie with ex-husband Sir Lenny Henry, and has gained two stepchildren through her second marriage to Mark Bignall, who runs a drugs rehabilitation charity near where they live in Cornwall.
Much of her work has been drawn from her own life – her 2008 autobiography Dear Fatty and recent solo show Thirty Million Minutes chart both her triumphs and her tragedies.
Her latest book Me. You. A Diary reveals what she has learned in her 60 years and features blank pages for readers to add their own entries.
It’s a mellow, gentle read with a lot of words of wisdom, as Dawn looks back on how she has acted and reacted to different events in her life, how her priorities have changed and how, as her mother used to say: “We don’t do perfect.”
While family is at the centre of her world, she guards their privacy like a tigress, both in the book and in person. It must have been hard to write about her own life without including them in it.
She said: “I’m a bit of a contradiction in terms.
“I’ve had my loss, I’ve had my joys and all kinds of ups and downs, like everyone – but I’ve found that by telling my story honestly, that connects me to the readers, and the audience to my show.
“It’s who I am. That doesn’t mean to say I’m not private – there’s plenty that’s not in the book.”
She doesn’t mention Mark by name in the diary and steers clear of much detail on