Tag Archives: Entertainment

Here’s How The Great British Bake-Off Handled This Year’s Heatwaves

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Usually, The Great British Bake-Off is filmed between April and June.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that fans have been wondering whether the most recent batch of bakers would be subjected to multiple record-breaking heatwaves.

The show (partly) addressed the problem directly on its Instagram page on May 27, soon after we saw the hottest May day on record.

“Us filming chocolate week,” they wrote over a clip of the iconic GBBO tent. The video was overlaid with the sound of comedian Peter Kay’s famous bit: “I like it warm, but I don’t like it this warm!”

“It’s always chocolate week when we have a heatwave,” a commenter wrote.

The Mirror reported that the show’s filming is still “underway”, and that its cameras were rolling during the June heatwave, too.

That meant amateur bakers had to continue to work their culinary magic while schools had closed due to the heat, and travellers had been advised to avoid “non-essential” journeys.

Though some fans worried filming would have to stop, the publication confirmed the show went on.

A source from the show told The Mirror, “Every measure that could be taken has been, to make the bakers comfortable. The lighting gaffer from the crew who’s in first every morning, opens up the tent, takes down the sides and gets airflow moving before everyone arrives.

“Earlier in the run, when temperatures were the opposite and it was freezing, he was doing the same thing in reverse, arriving early to put the heaters on and warm the tent up before the bakers and crew got in.

“Production runners have also kept everyone going in the heat by handing out ice lollies to bakers and crew throughout the day.”

Another source reportedly told The Mirror that the tent’s location near a cooling river, and a “welcome” breeze in the final weekend of May, made filming possible.

In 2018, then-hosts Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue Leith shared how heatwaves affect bakers’ creations.

Prue told Rolling Stone conditions were “Worse for the bakers than for us, because we just come in briefly and go out. They’re in there all the time,” while Paul added: “Yeah, chocolate week suffered a little bit. Caramel sugarwork suffered a little bit”.

Ironically, he added, bread week – when warm conditions would have made loaves rise faster – was a little cooler that year.

New host Nigella Lawson has previously said she is “allergic to the sun”, so time will only tell how she handled the hotter temps.

HuffPost UK has reached out to Channel 4 for more details.

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The Internet Won’t Let Jimmy Fallon Forget His Conor McGregor Interview

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Content note: the following contains sexually violent details.

The host of The Tonight Show brought McGregor on as a guest to discuss his return to UFC.

This comes two years after the fighter was found liable by 12 jurors in a civil case after Nikita Hand accused him of raping her in a Dublin hotel back in 2018.

He was ordered to pay £206,000 in damages, though McGregor denies that he raped Hand, saying they had “fully consensual sex”.

Before the civil case, Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions made the decision not to bring criminal charges to McGregor due to insufficient evidence. Two later appeals were dismissed.

Now, fans have noticed that no clips of the McGregor interview have appeared on Fallon’s Instagram page, even though it took place days ago.

A comment under the talk show host’s Instagram clip, which showed his interview with Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney, reads: “Don’t want to post McGregor @jimmyfallon? Why not?”

It has racked up over 13,000 likes as of the time of writing.

In fact, the entire comment section under the McCartney video is filled with references to the McGregor appearance.

“Rehabilitating McGregor. I hope you’re proud of yourself,” a comment reads.

“Jimmy Fallon supports [grape emoji]ists [calling someone a “grapist” is a way of alluding to rapists online] and then hides behind other guests when called out,” another said.

Still more simply wrote Nikita Hand’s name over and over.

Similar responses have been shared under his more recent Trump, “password” game, and Milly Alcock videos on social media.

“I’m struggling to find the clips of the predator on @jimmyfallon Was it deleted? It should be acknowledged and there should be an apology!” an Instagram user opined under his most recent Instagram upload.

Others say they used to be fans but have changed their mind since the McGregor interview.

“We loved you. We thought you were one of the good ones,” a former fan said.

Comments also included the mention of tampons – “Tampon. Surgically. Removed,” one reads.

During the 2024 trial, gynaecologist and forensic examiner, Dr Daniel Kane, said he had had to remove Hand’s “wedged” tampon with forceps.

HuffPost UK has reached out to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for comment.

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Hans Zimmer Almost Never Scored The Lion King — Until He Spoke To His Daughter

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I’m going to be honest – I didn’t even realise the legendary composer Hans Zimmer was behind The Lion King’s famous soundtrack until I heard him talk about it on Classic FM.

Not only did he work on the 1994 classic, but he actually won an Academy Award for Best Original Score (alongside two Grammies and a Golden Globe) for his contribution.

Still, he shared on Classic FM that he had been reluctant to take the role at first.

“I didn’t want to do Lion King, you know, cartoons – why am I doing cartoons?” he recalled.

Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer

via Associated Press

Until 1994, the composer’s work had appeared in live-action classics like Thelma & Louise, Rain Man, A World Apart and Driving Miss Daisy.

“And, oh my God, they might turn [the songs] into musicals. I don’t really like musicals,” the film legend said he thought at the time.

However, Zimmer changed his mind because his daughter, who was six at the time, had never been able to go with him to the premiere of any of the movies he’d worked on, because “all the movies with Ridley Scott are not necessarily child-friendly”.

So he agreed to make the film – but when he sat down to write, more family matters came up for Zimmer.

“My dad died when I was six years old, and here I am sitting in front of this cartoon, and it’s about the death of a father – with fart jokes, admittedly,” he revealed.

“And I realise… it’s a complete lie that children get over this stuff. They don’t get over it, they just find out really clever ways of hiding this stuff.”

The composer shared he couldn’t “hide” his feelings anymore, and “I basically wrote a requiem for my dad, and it became a really serious piece.”

That made it “deeper than your normal cartoon,” both for him and The Lion King’s viewers.

Zimmer has since been credited in mutliple other Disney titles (including Pirates Of The Caribbean, and, perhaps even more surprisingly still, Muppet Treasure Island).

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Gracie Abrams Has Her Say On ‘Nepo Baby’ Debate

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Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams has weighed in on the ongoing discourse around Hollywood’s so-called “nepo babies”.

Debates about nepotism in the entertainment industry are nothing new, but the conversation has become much more prominent in the 2020s, thanks in part to a piece in New York magazine about the new generation of A-listers whose parents are already established figures in the entertainment industry.

The “nepo baby” label is one that has repeatedly been levelled against Gracie since her emergence on the pop scene, as her dad is Star Wars filmmaker JJ Abrams.

During a recent appearance on the New York Times’ Popcast, Gracie shared her take on the subject, admitting she thinks it’s “appropriate” that people are aware of the privilege she grew up around.

Gracie Abrams pictured with her parents, PR exec Katie McGrath and director JJ Abrams, in March 2026
Gracie Abrams pictured with her parents, PR exec Katie McGrath and director JJ Abrams, in March 2026

Randy Shropshire via Getty Images for Creative Artist

“The nepo stuff is obviously in the discourse appropriately,” she claimed. “I think about the privilege there and… it’s like, I had a safety net, and that allowed me the ability to experiment and to concentrate.”

She continued: “I had the gift of time to dedicate to doing this thing I loved. I wasn’t growing up afraid financially, and that’s the biggest deal.”

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Gracie’s major breakthrough came in 2024 when her album The Secret Of Us spawned international hits like Close To You and That’s So True.

She also served as the opening act on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, collaborating with the Grammy winner on the album cut Us.

Outside of her music career, Gracie has also made headlines thanks to her relationship with the Oscar-nominated actor Paul Mescal, with the pair hard-launching their romance at the Baftas earlier this year.

Discussing her relationship during her latest interview, Gracie claimed that being with Paul was “a part of my life that brings me so much peace and joy”.

“I’m not going to pretend like that’s not true, but I also think it’s not like an open-door policy,” she said of the media attention the two have received since they began dating.

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