Harry, Meghan rebuff UK tabloids
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have announced they will no longer cooperate with several British tabloid newspapers because of what they call “distorted, false or invasive” stories.
Meghan and Prince Harry told the editors of The Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror in a letter that they won’t “offer themselves up as currency for an economy of click bait and distortion.” The couple’s representative released a copy of the letter Monday.
Harry and Meghan wrote that previous stories the newspapers published based on “salacious gossip” had upended the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. They said they would have “zero engagement” with the publications going forward but “believe that a free press is a cornerstone to any democracy.”
Their decision to freeze out the tabloids came as court papers revealed how Meghan and Harry pleaded with her father, Thomas Markle, to stop talking to the press in the days before their wedding. The pair warned him that speaking to the media would backfire and tried to help him, according to text messages filed in Meghan’s lawsuit against the Daily Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers. She is suing for invasion of privacy over a 2018 article that included portions of a letter she had written to her father.
Pandemic couldn’t derail new ‘Sopranos’ podcast:
The coronavirus pandemic almost upended a new podcast about the hit TV series “The Sopranos” before it even started. But hosts and series actors Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa said fans pleaded with them to find a way to do it.
Imperioli said fans had been watching the awardwinning HBO series during shelter-in-place orders and were hungry for the podcasts. “So Steve and I had a long talk, and we thought about it and we found a way to do it remotely,” Imperioli said.
Even a series regular like Schirripa is also learning things. “Michael tells me things that I’ve never even knew,” he said. “So it’s pretty amazing.”
New episodes of “Talking Sopranos” are available every Monday.
Idris Elba, wife to help others:
Actor Idris Elba and his model wife, Sabrina Dhowre Elba — who both had mild symptoms after contracting the coronavirus — have begun a push with the United Nations to lessen the impact of COVID-19 on farmers and food producers in rural areas.
“People forget that 80 percent of the poor population lives in these rural areas,” Dhowre Elba said. “What we are really worried about at the moment, and why we are launching this fund, is that those people are being forgotten.”
As U.N. Goodwill Ambassadors, the couple has joined with the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development to launch the
$40 million fund.
April 21 birthdays: Actor Charles Grodin is 85. Singer Iggy Pop is 73. Actress Patti LuPone is 71. Actor Tony Danza is 69. Actress Andie MacDowell is 62. Singer Robert Smith is 61. Rapper Michael Franti is 53. Comedian Nicole Sullivan is 50. Actor James McAvoy is 41. Actor Frank Dillane is 29. Singer Sydney Sierota is 23.