MP’s a pioneer
LABOUR’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle made history yesterday by becoming the first MP to reveal he is HIV positive.
Like others who have faced prejudice, he decided that the best way to tackle stigma is to confront it.
His courage in doing so will give hope to others living with the condition. Mel B’s autobiography is packed with bombshells, from her hedonistic Spice Girl days, divorces and abuse through to a suicide attempt.
“Eddie [Murphy] made me happier than any man I’d ever met.”
Laugh: “Erect privates were lined up against a milk or juice carton so you could gauge the size.”
Eyebrow raise: Using cocaine as a judge on The X Factor in 2014: “I was probably taking five or six lines a day.”
OUR RATING 5/5 A stunning photographic collection with passages from the ex-ballerina and Strictly star.
“I’d be wearing an outrageous white Lycra one-piece, with a star on each buttock and one on my… well, you can see where on page 19.”
“When I was cast at 18, I didn’t know it was the main role in the ballet which was a huge honour. I thought they’d got it wrong.
Very embarrassingly I didn’t turn up for the first rehearsal.”
Eyebrow raise: “As a late starter I had to work hard to keep up with my peers at The Royal Ballet School.”
3/5 The singing legend talks of her early years picking cotton in Nutbush, emotional and physical abuse from late husband Ike, the kidney transplant from her second husband and the suicide of her son.
“Ike used my nose as a punching bag so many times that I could taste blood running down my throat when I sang. He broke my jaw. ”
“The first time I saw Ike on stage I couldn’t help thinking: ‘God, he’s ugly.’ ” Eyebrow raise: “Ike took me to a whorehouse. On my wedding night.” Darcey Bussell and Billy Connolly
Won the Tour de France after years of crashes, injury and sacrificing himself.
He rode the 2013 Tour with a fractured pelvis. “I had to be lifted onto my bike each morning.”
At the party after his Tour victory Team Sky boss Dave Brailsford “grabbed my shirt front and ripped it open”.
“Chris (Froome) definitely wanted to win that day and to win the Tour. He was doing what great champions do.” 3/5 Comic talks of his pride of being a Scot who toiled in the shipyards.
He fell 45ft and broke an ankle – “it was a miracle that it didn’t kill me”.
Laugh: He told a teacher he wanted to be a comedian. “‘Well, I saw you playing football,’ Mr Sheridan told me. ‘I think you’ve already achieved that ambition.’ ”
“I put a washer on the QE2. Many years later I was in Sydney and the QE2 pulled in. I thought to myself, ‘I wonder how my washer is holding up?’ ” 4/5 Actress reveals challenging childhood and the highs and lows of Hollywood career. At 17, Sally was sent to a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, for an abortion. During the procedure the male anaesthetist groped her breast.
Burt Reynold’s attempt to bribe her two children with expensive Christmas presents “flopped like a juicy fart at a family reunion”.
Eyebrow raise: “Burt was Hollywood’s leading heart-throb – and also an egomaniacal boor and control freak.”
4/5