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A leather jacket that the late US actor Patrick Swayze wore in Dirty Dancing has sold for $62,500 (£48,270) at an auction in Los Angeles.

Hundreds of other items belonging to Swayze – including a surfboard from Point Break and a shirt he wore in Ghost – also went under the hammer.

His widow Lisa Niemi said she had “a lot of mixed feelings” about selling the items.

Swayze died in 2009 from pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

The leather jacket was bought on Friday by a Hollywood memorabilia collector, who only identified himself as Glenn.

Speaking about the sale, Niemi told the Press Association: “No matter what, it’s still a letting go. There’s always a little bit of loss associated with that.

“While it’s a very positive thing to do, it’s a difficult thing to do.

“I’m such a lucky woman to have had a man who loved me as much as Patrick did.”

The auction went ahead despite strong opposition from Swayze’s niece.

“These were family heirlooms,” Danielle Swayze told the Press Association.

“It’s a slap in the face that she’s selling these precious memories,” she added.

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Source:: BBC Entertainment

What’s your favourite time of day? Have you ever worn odd socks? Why are you dressed as the devil?

Pop magazines took a very different approach to interviews in the 1980s and, as the decade’s biggest girl band, Bananarama found themselves fielding all of the above questions and more.

Smash Hits, Look-In and Number 1 devoted dozens of pages to the trio, many of which dwelt on the fact they lived together on the 11th floor of a block of flats in Holborn.

“It always looked better in the photos than it did in real life,” laughs Keren Woodward, now 56 and living in more comfortable circumstances in Cornwall.

“It was a dive,” recalls her bandmate and childhood friend Sarah Dallin.

“You’re not house-proud when you’re young. But now I’d be like, ‘Take your shoes off!'”

Still, those irreverent, Python-esque profiles were often more revealing than the now-standard “tell me about your co-writers” pop interview.

So, to celebrate the reunion of Bananarama’s original line-up – .

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Source:: BBC Entertainment

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A look back at some of the top stories over the past seven days. …read more

Source:: BBC Entertainment

Not since Blur v Oasis has there been a pop battle this epic.

With the release of their new album, reunited pop group Steps valiantly challenged Ed Sheeran’s dominance of the album charts and, at the start of the week, it seemed they would win.

On Monday, Tears On The Dancefloor was 4,000 sales ahead of Ed’s Divide.

But Ed refused to say Sheerio, overtaking his competitors at the last minute and claiming the number one slot for the seventh week in a row.

Divide eventually finished 16,000 units ahead of the Steps album, beating H, Faye, Claire, Lisa and Lee in both the streaming and physical charts.

Steps did, however, have the most-downloaded album of the week.

Their comeback follows a bitter break-up in the early 2000s. Before that, the band clocked up three number one albums and 14 top 10 singles, including three chart toppers.

Top five albums (source: Official Charts Company)ArtistSong1) Ed SheeranDivide2) StepsTears On The Dancefloor3) Rag ‘N’ Bone ManHuman4) Imelda MayLife Love Flesh Blood5) Kendrick LamarDamn.

Other new entries in this week’s album chart came from Imelda May (at number five), Texas (six), Maximo Park (11) and Ray Davies (15).

David Bowie also scored two new entries thanks to Record Store Day. Cracked Actor, which features a rare live performance from the 1970s, debuted at 20; while Bowpromo, an early assembly of tracks from the Hunky Dory album, landed at 38.

Top five singles (source: Official Charts Company)ArtistSong1) Clean Bandit ft Zara LarssonSymphony2) Ed SheeranShape of You3) Ed SheeranGalway Girl4) Harry StylesSign Of The Times5) DrakePassionfruit

In the singles chart, Clean Bandit succeeded where Steps failed – ousting Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You from the pole position with their Zara Larsson-featuring dance hit Symphony.

The song enjoyed a slow, six-week journey to the top and becomes the band’s second consecutive number one, after Rockabye, which topped the Christmas countdown last year.

“We are all amazed,” said the band. “After everything that happened with Rockabye, we didn’t think it would be possible to replicate that but now we’re Number 1 again!

“We’ve been in the US the last few weeks touring with Zara Larsson and we got the chance to tell her it was Number 1. She was so excited!”

Clean Bandit’s chart success means a British act has had the number one single for each of the last 30 weeks.

It is the first time this millennium that homegrown acts have dominated the …read more

Source:: BBC Entertainment

Video

A parody of Shape of You, which includes the lyrics “I gag at the smell of poo”, is a Facebook hit.

Mum-of-two Sophie McCartney from Warrington sings a parenting parody based on Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You song.

The song details “the every day struggles of being a mum” and has had 14 million views.

It includes lyrics such as “stop wiping snot on my body” and “my bed sheets smell like poo”.

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Source:: BBC Entertainment

Beauty and the Beast star Emma Watson has said she does not read social media comments for the sake of her sanity.

Watson is playing the lead role in The Circle, the film adaptation of Dave Eggers’s novel about an all-seeing tech corporation.

She plays a graduate who joins Hanks’s company and soon finds herself joining an experiment that pushes the boundaries of privacy and ethics.

Watson said at the New York premiere: “For my sanity, I cannot, I just cannot even go there (reading comments).”

“I have to create some distance because I’m human. I think there’s this way where technology can dehumanise.”

How to keep your kids safe online

She’s not the only celebrity who has had issues with social media in recent years:

Rylan

The former X Factor contestant and current This Morning presenter quit Twitter earlier this week after receiving online abuse over his new gameshow.

Fans of successful ITV show The Chase mistakenly thought their favourite show was being taken off air to be replaced by Rylan’s Babushka.

In fact, The Chase was taking its usual yearly contractual break so the next series could be filmed and Babushka will fill that slot.

On Monday’s This Morning, Rylan, sporting an ‘I love The Chase’ T-shirt, told Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby: “I am not cancelling The Chase, it has not been axed. Please stop hurling abuse at me, it’s not fair, OK?

“I’m just someone doing my job. Everyone this weekend is in uproar that Rylan has ‘axed The Chase’ to make way for my new show. That’s a lie, The Chase has a break every single year guys, calm down.”

Later that day, he took himself off Twitter as the unwanted comments continued.

“Getting a bit ridiculous now. Just doing my job. Enjoy the show. Coming off here for a while. Babushka stars on Monday 1st.”

Lily James

The Cinderella actress felt the social media heat when she starred in ITV period drama Downton Abbey.

Lily – who played Lady Rose MacClare in the series – admitted that she’d left Twitter after being targeted by trolls who mainly criticised her appearance.

Lily, 25, told the Radio Times: “I was surprised people had an opinion about me, but now I don’t want to engage with that stuff. The internet is not a real person, so why would you want to read it? I did at first, but quickly got over it.”

Her last tweet was in 2015.

Stephen …read more

Source:: BBC Entertainment

Apprentice winner Joseph Valente has split from Lord Sugar two years after winning the show.

Lord Sugar invested £250,000 into Valente’s plumbing business in 2015.

They’ve now announced that Valente will take full control of ImpraGas – but they’re parting on friendly terms.

Lord Sugar said: “I’ll still be on hand to offer any help and advice required. I wish Joseph and ImpraGas all the very best for the future and will follow their progress with much affection.”

Lord Sugar will now divest himself of his interest in the company, with Valente acquiring his shareholding and taking full control of the business.

Valente added: “I am so grateful for everything Lord Sugar has done for me and I could not have asked for a better partner in the early stages of my business career.

“I owe him a great deal. I am confident that with the winning business model we created together, I can continue to grow the business successfully.”

So how many Apprentice winners does that leave who are still working with Lord Sugar?

Glad you asked, let’s take a look:

Still with Lord Sugar

Of the 12 winners of the UK series of The Apprentice, five are still working with Lord Sugar.

They are Tom Pellereau, Ricky Martin, Leah Totton, Mark Wright and Alana Spencer.

Interestingly, all five won the show after a format change which saw Lord Sugar invest £250,000 in a business idea, rather than offering the winner a job in his own company.

After his time on the show, Pelleraeu used the investment to invent and bring to market a curved nail file, which is now stocked by major supermarkets.

Martin runs a science and technology recruitment company while Totton now has two cosmetic clinics offering botox and wrinkle reduction.

Wright is still working with Lord Sugar on his company which uses digital marketing to help small businesses grow.

And Spencer, who won the most recent series, is in the process of launching her own bakery firm.

Parted company

Seven of the 12 winners have since parted company with Lord Sugar – many on perfectly good terms… others less so.

The very first winner, Tim Campbell, worked for Lord Sugar for a year before leaving (with his boss’s blessing) to set up a male grooming business, and more recently a digital marketing agency.

Michelle Dewberry worked for Lord Sugar for 11 months but left to set up her own company and a media career, appearing regularly on news programmes such as Sky’s weekly …read more

Source:: BBC Entertainment

La La Land director Damien Chazelle is planning a TV musical drama set in Paris.

The new work from Chazelle, who won the best director Oscar in February, will centre on the city’s music scene.

The Eddy revolves around a club, its owner, and the house band, according to Hollywood Reporter.

It will be written by Harry Potter and The Cursed Child co-writer Jack Thorne, the man behind the script for Channel 4 drama National Treasure.

Grammy-winning songwriter Glen Ballard is attached to the project as an executive producer, as is Six Feet Under director Alan Poul.

Chazelle became the youngest winner of the best director Oscar when he won aged just 32 for La La Land.

His other film projects include teaming up with Ryan Gosling for a forthcoming biopic about astronaut Neil Armstrong.

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Source:: BBC Entertainment