Pretoria News Weekend 2022-12-10

’Tis the season of Spotify Wrapped, that time of year when users of the streaming service unabashedly reveal their taste in music – and just how many minutes they spent jamming to the same song – via a made-to-share breakdown of their listening history. As droves of people disclosed the soundtracks to their lives on Wednesday, one artist reigned supreme in their personalised decks of animated slides: Bad Bunny, also known as El Conejo Malo and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (his real name). For the third year in a row, Bad Bunny was the most streamed global artist on Spotify. Garnering over 18.5 billion streams in 2022, he more than doubled the amount he racked up last year. His latest album, Un Verano Sin Ti was also the most streamed…

Gyles Brandreth “didn’t want to upset anyone” by claiming Queen Elizabeth had cancer when she died. The 74-year-old author has caused a stir with his new book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait because he wrote the monarch – whose cause of death was attributed to old age following her death in September aged 96 – had been suffering from myeloma, and though he stands by what he wrote, he dismissed suggestions that the revelation was “intrusive”. Speaking to HELLO! magazine, he said: “It’s not unusual for a doctor to write ‘old age’ on a death certificate when a person over 80 dies, as happened with the queen. “But I’d heard she had bone marrow cancer so I thought it was legitimate to include that paragraph. “The queen’s doctor in Scotland, who…

Gabourey Sidibe secretly got married to Brandon Frankel – in their kitchen. The Precious star broke the news that the pair married last March, shortly after their engagement, on Live with Kelly and Ryan on Monday. The 39-year-old actress insisted she’s not a fan of weddings, which is why they chose the low-key option. “The thing about weddings is I don’t like them. Here’s an example of how much I don’t like them – I’m actually married. We got married over a year ago.” She then revealed that she and Frankel got hitched, “at the kitchen table”. After the interview aired, her spouse took to Instagram to gush over his “forever person”. He wrote alongside snaps of the pair at the kitchen table showing off their wedding bands and cupcakes…

Cheesy rom-coms aren’t usually Robby Bailey’s preferred genre during the holiday season, but after he watched Netflix’s gay Christmas movie Single All the Way with his partner, he was pleasantly surprised. Gay characters in other movies often seem like caricatures, written by someone who “met a gay person once,” Bailey, 37, said. But these characters were “just like everybody else,” he said. “It felt more relatable.” Holiday movie season is ramping up again, and so is queer visibility in recent years in its formulaic rom-coms. “We believe that everyone deserves love and that our storytelling is enriched by reflecting the diverse voices, perspectives, traditions and families of our audience,” Lisa Hamilton Daly, Hallmark Media’s executive vice president of programming, wrote in a statement to The Washington Post. “Our priority is…

As 2022 draws to a close and we ready ourselves for the festive season, it’s time to swop our office wear for beach wear and take a much-needed break from a year of many changes. People are moving back to the office post lockdowns, which means saying goodbye to leisure wear and hello to fashionable streetwear as well as the rise in luxury fashion. The fashion industry is thriving once again and live fashion shows are back, bringing out fashion-forward celebrities and unforgettable fashion moments. We look back at designers and celebrities who made an impact on the fashion scene this year. Rihanna redefined maternity wear From the moment Rihanna made her pregnancy announcement in January wearing a vintage bubblegum-pink Chanel puffer, unbuttoned to show off her baby bump, we…

Winnie Harlow walked the red carpet at the 2022 British Fashion Awards on Monday night wearing a Magnum Vegan Dress designed by Iris van Herpen. The 28-year-old Canadian model stunned at the exclusive event held at the Royal Albert Hall in London in the world’s first Haute Couture vegan dress made from cocoa beans. Magnum ice cream partnered with luxury Dutch fashion designer Van Herpen – one of the industry’s most talented and forward-thinking creatives – to design a vegan dress inspired by the Magnum Vegan Ice Cream. With the purpose of strengthening and driving Magnum’s environmental credentials, the Magnum Vegan Dress is designed and created using sustainable materials that reference Magnum’s Vegan ingredients in an indulgent fusion between the brand’s melting chocolate and Iris’ luxurious fluid designs. The Magnum…