During the Star Wars Celebration “Future Filmmakers” panel in London last week, film directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord revealed the news we had been waiting to hear ever since the announcement of a Han Solo standalone film.
The filmmakers revealed that after 3,000 auditions, 26-year-old American actor Alden Ehrenreich has been cast to play the young smuggler and scoundrel of the rebel alliance.
Funnily enough, Alden was the first of the thousands to audition for the role.
“We thought this was the hardest casting challenge of all time. They were the biggest boots to fill,” Christopher said before adding, “but we cast the first person who walked through the door.”
Speaking of the lengthy audition process, Alden quipped: “I read the sides and I loved them. I auditioned for six months. The coolest part was I went on the Falcon for a chemistry test with Chewbacca.”
“It was unbelievable. It was more exciting than nerve-racking.”
The rising star sure has big boots to fill with Harrison Ford playing the original Han Solo.
The upcoming Han Solo film will hone in on the beloved character’s back story, showing the audience how he came to be the smuggler who takes Luke Skywalker aboard the Millennium Falcon, helping him escape Darth Vader.
“The story focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley,” Disney announced in a statement last year.
“This dichotomy between a grouchy, seemingly cynical guy, with the biggest heart in the galaxy. That’s a great thing to make a movie about,” it concluded.
He may be a grouchy guy, but he’s loved by Star Wars fans all over the world.
And given Alden’s snappy rise to fame and cheeky boyish grin that resembles that of the iconic Harrison Ford, we’re sure the casting decision has been a great one!
After having his talents discovered at a bat mitzvah by none other than Steven Spielberg, the California-born actor was kick-started into the glitzy Hollywood scene.
He appeared on the small screen in shows such as Supernatural and CSI before the handsome beau was thrusted into the spotlight when he played the stepson of Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.
Fans will remember Alden’s standout performance in Hail, Caesar!
This year, Alden thoroughly impressed critics with his charming performance alongside George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in the Coen brothers film Hail, Caesar!, so it would seem that the only way is up for this rising star.
The yet-to-be-titled Han Solo standalone movie is expected to hit screens in May, 2018.
Watch Alden in his hilarious breakout role in the video player below!
Kanye West has always insisted Taylor Swift was well aware of his controversial lyrics in his song Famous, while she vehemently denies he told her about it.
And now, supportive wife Kim Kardashian has unveiled a series of Snapchats which purport to show Yeezy getting his infamous line “I feel like me and Taylor might have sex,” approved by the 26-year-old.
However the recorded conversations do not show Kanye getting the line “I made that b—- famous” cleared.
Taylor can be heard to reflect on the moment Kanye West interrupted her her 2009 VMA’s speech, “You’ve got to tell the story the way that it happened to you and the way that you experienced it. You honestly didn’t know who I was before that.”
In the damning footage, the father-of-two politely chats to Taylor about Famous from his latest album, The Life Of Pablo.
“I’m like this close to overexposure,” a voice sounding a lot like Taylor can be heard to say after he reads out the now infamous line: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.”
“I think this is a really cool thing to have,” the rapper tells Taylor about being mentioned in the track.
“I know, I mean it’s like a compliment,” the Bad Blood singer responds.
Kanye then goes on to explain her feelings are very much at the front of his mind.
“What I give a f— about is you as a person and as a friend. I want things that make you feel good. I don’t want to do rap that makes people feel bad,” the 39-year-old vouches.
“Yeah, go with whatever line feels better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. I really appreciate you telling me about it, that’s really nice,” the blonde beauty concedes.
“I just have a responsibility to you as a friend. Thanks for being so cool about it,” Kim Kardashian’s other half adds.
Taylor adds, ”I really appreciate it. The heads up is so nice… I never would have expected you to tell me about a line in a lyric. And the flowers that you sent me, I Instagrammed a picture of them and it’s the most Instagram likes I’ve ever gotten.”
“Relationships are more important than punchlines, you know,” a softly spoken Kanye muses.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think anybody would listen to that and be like, ‘Oh that’s a real bit. She must be crying,'” she can be heard to say.
A furious Taylor quickly took to Instagram to respond to the videos (above).
“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened. You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ in front of the entire world,” she penned.
“Of course I wanted to like the song. I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did. While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot ‘approve’ a song you haven’t heard.”
“Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination. I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.”
Her post was accompanied with the caption, “That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet.”
Kim’s Snapchats aren’t the only dig she’s made at Taylor! Earlier on Sunday evening, the mother-of-two tweeted a rather pointed post which seemed to be aimed at the Shake It Off hitmaker.
“Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!? They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days!” Kim penned alongside a plethora of snake emojis.
Kim and Kayne have always insisted there was video evidence of Yeezy’s conversation with Taylor over the Famous track.
This installment is just the latest twist in the Famous fallout.
In June, Kim told GQ Magazine that Swifty had “totally approved” her husband’s song.
“She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t,” the reality star explained to the publication.
Taylor was quick to respond with her own statement, which read: “Taylor does not hold anything against Kim Kardashian as she recognises the pressure Kim must be under and that she is only repeating what she has been told by Kanye West.”
“Taylor heard it for the first time when everyone else did and was humiliated. Kim Kardashian’s claim that Taylor and her team were aware of being recorded is not true, and Taylor cannot understand why Kanye West, and now Kim Kardashian, will not just leave her alone.”
Watch Taylor hit out at Kanye in the player below. Post continues after the video…
Loading the player...
“Kanye West and Taylor only spoke once on the phone while she was on vacation with her family in January of 2016 and they have never spoken since.”
“As the first woman to win album of the year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to all the young woman out there that there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame,” Taylor added in a not-so-subtle response to Yeezy.
During her chat with the talk show host on Friday night the 28-year-old starlet, who is married to Ryan Reynolds, came armed with a hilarious video of James inspecting the life-sized cardboard cut-out of Jimmy that she was given the last time she was on his show.
In the footage, James can be seen showering the Jimmy cut-out with loving kisses.
“Is that Jimmy?” Blake asks. Before continuing, “Where’s your dada?”
Baby James then points at Jimmy and calls him “dada.”
Cutting back to Blake and Jimmy in the studio, the pair chuckled before Jimmy joked, “I hope Ryan [Reynolds] isn’t watching tonight.”
“Even backstage she goes [to you] ‘dada’. I think I should do a paternity test right now on air,” Blake confessed.
“This is the wrong show, you’re not on Maury [Povich],” Jimmy said.
James’ confusion over the identity of her father isn’t the only adorable thing the young tot has been getting up to!
Blake’s 18-month-old daughter James has mistaken Jimmy Fallon for her dad!
According to Blake, her first child is also struggling to grasp a few words.
“She says ‘shump’ for jump, ‘shtand’ for stand and if she wants to sit down, it’s ‘s—,’” Blake shared.
“But I will take that any day over when we take her to the park and we take off her socks. For some reason she doesn’t have her ‘sh’ for socks, she has a ‘c’ for socks.”
Watch the actress talk about the challenges of her second pregnancy in the player below. Post continues after the video!
Loading the player...
Meanwhile the blonde beauty, who is currently promoting her latest film Café Society, also opened up about her second pregnancy, admitting the balmy summer weather in the Big Apple was proving a challenge.
“It should be illegal to be pregnant in New York in July,” the Gossip Girl stunner explained.
“I swear, I’m going to make my water break just so I can cool down.”
The star opted for a corset-style top and floaty white skirt, which showed off her growing baby bump beautifully.
Speaking to People at the REVOLVE in The Hamptons party over the weekend, the reality star revealed exactly how she’s managed to lose over 30 kilograms since the birth of son Saint seven months ago.
While she originally thought that regular workouts would be enough to whip her body into shape, the 35-year-old has since learnt the important of a balanced, yet strict diet.
“I think dieting is so important to weight loss, whereas, I didn’t really ever think that before,” Kim, who now weighs a svelte 54 kilograms, quipped to People.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I can work out, I can just eat whatever I want.’ But you have to work out all the time.”
The brunette beauty, pictured with younger sister Kendall Jenner, says fish and turkey are her go-to foods.
The app entrepreneur showed off the fruits of her labour when she stepped out in a mesh dress during an outing in LA recently.
The reality star went on to explain the key proteins responsible for her taught physique, while stressing the importance of mini-indulgences – you know, to keep you feeling sane.
“We eat a lot of fish and turkey,” she said. “It’s a full modified thing. I worked with them in them sending me their snack stuff.”
“And there would be this trail mix with M&M chocolates with peanuts, so there was stuff that makes it you feel like you can live. And not like super restricted to anything.”
Speaking of her post-baby body struggles, the selfie queen admitted, “Anyone who has had kids knows your body changes, and it’s hard to get your body back in shape.”
After a few minor slip ups in the form of Disneyland churros (we’ve all been there), Kanye West’s wife now reveals that she is 100% focused on losing the full 32 kilograms she set for herself earlier this year.
So how exactly has Kim managed to bounce back so fast? Well, the answer to that lies on her dinner plate, which contains a range foods carefully constructed from a trusted celebrity meal plan called the Atkins diet.
Go behind-the-scenes of Kim’s latest bare-all shoot in the video player below! Post continues…
Loading the player...
The renowned celebrity diet is nothing new to the A-lister, who previously turned to the Atkins diet after the birth of her first daughter North in 2013.
To get slim Kim back, the mother-of-two has indulged in a variety of foods including proteins in the form of fish, chicken, eggs and meat, lots of colourful vegetables and low-glycemic fruits such as berries and cantaloupe.
For her daily serve of dairy, Kim munches away on Greek yogurt and some (but not all) cheeses, and healthy fats like nuts, avocados and olive oil – all the while staying hydrated by consuming 1.3 – 1.8 litres of water.
It’s all about balance!
Now, Kim’s day on a plate would start with a breakfast made up of rolled oats, strawberries and pecans.
For lunch, the brunette beauty would munch away on a turkey burger with chipotle aioli, tomato, pickles and onions, and for dinner the TV personality would eat grilled chicken with asparagus, tomato and mozzarella.
To tide over the mid-morning and early-arvo tummy grumbles, she would also snack on assorted fruits and veggies, from cherry tomatoes, capsicum, peaches and honeydew melon.
The diet actually sounds rather delicious and perhaps more importantly, achievable.
As a meal plan, it aims to promote a quick but steady weight loss in the body by keeping carbohydrate consumption to around 40 grams per day, all the while keeping your daily calorie intake from around 1500 to 1800.
Try the diet for yourself with salads made up of colourful veggies and lean meats. This tuna carpaccio with Asian salad recipe will do the trick!
Kath Read has been fat since she was a kid, and for the past 30 years she has been picked on for it every day. She has been spat upon, pushed, abused. She’s had rubbish thrown at her from cars. “Just going about my daily business, there’s always someone who thinks it’s okay to point and nudge,” she says. “Not just kids, but women in business suits push me on a train and say ‘get out of the way you fat bitch’.”
She’s tried every diet, pill and potion. She’s suffered bulimia. She’s seen doctors, dieticians, nutritionists. She’s exercised. Her weight has oscillated wildly but the kilos always come back, and as a result, Kath has spent the best part of 40 years feeling like “the most worthless person on the planet”. She has tried to kill herself several times, figuring there was no point in living if she had to live fat.
Many Australians can relate to Kath Read. Statistics released last year show 61 per cent of adults are overweight, and one in four is obese. Governments are urging people to slim down, and many are desperately trying; in 2010-11, Australians spent $789.6 million on weight loss programs, low-calorie products, dietary supplements, low-fat cookbooks and even surgery. Yet, both personally and as a community, we are fighting a losing battle; not only are obesity rates rising, but statistics show that the majority of people who lose weight put it on again, plus more.
According to conventional wisdom, losing weight should simple for those with enough willpower; just consume less energy than you expend, or eat less and exercise more. Following that logic, those who fail are lazy or gluttonous. But as Kath Read already knew, and experts are beginning to learn, losing weight and keeping it off is far more difficult than that, and requires not only relentless discipline, but an almost unwinnable fight against our own bodies.
When we gaze enviously at naturally skinny people, we should remember that a couple of thousand years ago, they would have been gazing enviously at us. In the days when humans were scrounging for their next meal, the genetic pathways that helped some people hang onto fat were key to survival.
Dr Louise Baur, a specialist in paediatric obesity at the University of Sydney, says up to 70 per cent of variation in body size is determined by genetics. Not one gene, but hundreds of them, governing everything from whether cells prefer carbohydrate or fat as fuel, to the way taste works or how the stomach tells the brain it’s hungry. “If we only had one pathway that determined what our bodyweight was and whether we stored fat, the human species would not have survived,” she says.
Nevertheless, obesity only became a problem in the late 20th century, when food became cheap, accessible and processed. This provided the environment for people who already had a genetic bent towards obesity to start tipping the scales at numbers we’ve ever seen before. “We’ve had massive changes to the food environment in the last three decades, and genetically vulnerable people in particular are responding,” says Dr Baur.
Professor Joseph Prioietto from the University of Melbourne, who runs the Weight Control Clinic at Austin Health, is a big believer in the genetic roots of obesity. He points to the science of epigenetics – the idea that we are born with a set of genes, but only some of them are switched on. Environmental triggers determine which ones are which. They could include pregnancy, for example. “Most [women] say they did not have a problem with their weight until pregnancy,” he says. “What we feed our children might be a trigger. If we knew what these triggers might be, we might be able to do something about some of them.”
But we’re not only fighting our genes. We’re also fighting our hormones. There are 10 hormones that affect appetite – one makes us hungry, the others take hunger away, he says. To study their hormonal response to diets, Dr Prioetto put obese people on an extremely low-calorie diet, and found that after weight loss of 10 per cent, the one hormone that makes us hungry increased, but many of hormones supressing appetite decreased, leaving the dieter hungrier than he or she was before.
“It’s not a matter of choice, these are very powerful drives,” he says. “Governments should stop wasting money. That balloon telling us to have a small ice-cream instead of a big ice-cream completely ignores the biology of obesity.”
Other studies show dieting makes our body more efficient at burning fuel, so our energy requirements drop. Someone who has lost 20 kilograms to reach 70kg must eat less to avoid gaining weight than someone who was 70kg all along.
That’s not to say weight loss is impossible in itself; everyone can lose weight, at least for a few weeks, explains Associate Professor Amanda Sainsbury-Salis, principal research fellow at the Boden Institute of Obesity. Keeping it off is tougher. Sooner or later, bodies start fighting back. Even if the dieter is still over 100kgs and on a sensible diet – for example, losing half a kilo a week for 12 weeks – the body triggers its famine response to stop the dieter from losing any more weight. “It not only makes you hungry, it makes you really crave rich foods – carrots and celery sticks don’t cut it,” she says.
With all these factors conspiring against us, it’s no wonder that, despite their most valiant efforts, most people – some put the figure at 95 per cent of dieters – end up putting on more weight than they lost within one to two years. As Professor Sainsbury-Salis explains, “I liken obesity to being a little bit like the Hotel California. You can check out any time you want but you can never leave.”
“Just going about my daily business, there’s always someone who thinks it’s okay to point and nudge.” – Kath Read.
The fight against hormones and genetics is tough enough, but at least that’s a private battle. For many, living in a world that seems to unashamedly discriminate against fat people is the most difficult thing about being obese.
Studies have shown overweight people earn less, are less likely to be promoted and are more likely to be sacked. In the United States, they are less likely to be accepted into college.
Monash University psychologist Leah Brennan is one of the few people in Australia who study the psychology of weight. One of the most severe impacts of obesity in the short-term is on mental health, she says. “For most people, failure is almost inevitable in many weight-loss approaches. You can imagine what it does to your self-confidence. If you’re being blamed for being overweight and blamed for being stigmatised, that’s going to have impacts on your mental health and well-being.”
The stigma of obesity has been compared with the stigma of HIV in the early 1990s, because in both cases, the prevailing view was that people bought it on themselves. This is particularly heartbreaking when sufferers are children.
“Our staff have wanted to cry sometimes,” says Dr Baur, who runs an obesity clinic at Westmead Children’s Hospital. “They hear stories about children being stigmatised, bullied at school, kids moving school, cyber bullying. And it’s not just their peers – their families can have a go at them, adults on the street, school teachers, health professionals. ‘You’re as big as an elephant’, someone told one patient across a crowded waiting room.”
Studies also show that overweight people encounter some of the worst discrimination from health workers, many of whom shame patients for their weight and blame ailments on their size without looking for other possible causes.
This is something Kath Read can relate to. “I was riding my bike and hit my knee on a fence, and did a bit of damage,” she says. “I went to the doctor. She said you need to do some exercise, and I told her I was riding my bike. She wouldn’t even examine my knee, all she heard was ‘fat fat fat fat’.
“Quite a few fat people have had doctors refuse to touch them.”
At age 35, Kath decided to step off the weight-loss treadmill. She couldn’t take the emotional roller-coaster, and her body had been through too much, so she stopped dieting and embraced life.
“I can’t express the difference,” she says. “I spend the first 35 years of my life waiting until I was thin. Now, nothing stops me. I have so much more confidence. My life is joyful. People still make those comments, but what I’ve realised is that other people’s crappy behaviour is not my burden to carry. It doesn’t measure my worth. I still get shocked [by those comments] and of course it still hurts, but I’m not going to let anyone else stop me from living my life.”
Kath has embraced exercise as something to enjoy rather than a punishment. She hasn’t given herself a hard time about the kind of food she eats. And ever since she stopped dieting, she has stopped putting on weight.
Kath has also become what is known as a ‘fat activist’. She writes a blog called Fat Heffalump, on which she discusses everything from her adventures to her ‘fatshion’ and links to fellow bloggers, such as Corpulent and Fat Lot of Good. She speaks out against weight prejudice. “I would like [fat people] to be treated as human beings, with basic dignity,” she says. “Everyone should be able to go about their lives without being vilified or treated like second-class citizens.”
“Obesity is a bit like the Hotel California – you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.” – Professor Sainsbury-Salis.
Many experts believe we’re taking the wrong approach to obesity, one that encourages failure, shame and discrimination. But the alternatives are few, and often controversial.
A popular movement among fat activists and some doctors is Healthy at Every Size, which focuses on health indicators such as blood pressure and cholesterol rather than weight. Some advocates don’t believe the link between obesity and poor health, while others believe that while excess weight is unhealthy, focusing on weight loss can be counter-productive.
While Kath Read believes her health is no-one’s business but hers and her doctor’s, she supports this approach. So does psychologist Leah Brennan. “Given that the fairly overwhelming research shows losing weight and sustaining weight loss is unachievable, that’s not the best goal for people to change their health risk behaviour,” she says. “If we teach people how to change their behaviour for the sake of health itself, they can continue to do that regardless of what happens to their weight.”
When Regina Benjamin was made Surgeon General of the United States, she was widely criticised for her weight, with many questioning the message she sent to a country struggling as much as Australia with its waistline (her supporters pointed out that US President Barack Obama still smokes cigarettes). “I exercise regularly, at least four days a week,” she reportedly replied. “I tend to stay on the elliptical as long as other people. I’m not out of breath. You can be healthy and fit at different sizes. The real message is that you don’t want to limit yourself by your dress size.”
Dr Sainsbruy-Salis, however, disagrees with the Health At Every Size movement. “I don’t think it’s possible to be healthy at any size,” she says. “I think it’s possible to live a healthy lifestyle at any size, and to do your best to be healthy at any size, and there are individuals who are overweight and obese and are metabolically healthy – those people are lucky, they have genes that make them immune to insulin resistance or the development of diabetes.”
She believes there is an answer to the weight loss conundrum. “We just haven’t found the best answer yet,” says Dr Sainsbury-Salis.
“We used to think that 95 per cent of people who lost weight will gain it back again, but the success rate is much better than that – 35-40 per cent of people who are losing weight are able to keep it off. Some people say that these people must be obsessed and have disordered eating, but there is a significant proportion of people who have lost over 13, 15, 29 kilos and are keeping it off.”
Dr Sainsbury-Salis is working on an experiment to find out whether the body fights less if the weight loss is very slow (she lost 28 kilos over six years and has kept it off for 13 years). She believes gastric banding is a good option for people who have tried everything.
Weight loss is also more effective if the dieter seeks help during the maintenance phase. “One of the things you absolutely must do is get help. People think of getting help while they are losing weight, they don’t often get help in the maintenance phase, but that’s when you most need help.”
Dr Baur agrees that it’s possible for people to lose weight and keep it off. But this requires big changes to their environment, which can be very difficult. “You could move to cultures where there is a different food and physical environment, such as Japan, or you can change your environment,” she says. “That’s really hard. You have to be hugely motivated to do that.” People have more success if they lose weight as a family, and joining community weight-loss support groups helps too.
Dr Baur believes obese people should not be stigmatised. But she also believes that the health problems caused by excess weight should not be minimised, either. “I see, clinically, a severe, chronic, relapsing disease,” she says. “We need to see it in that sense and not see it as some sort of cosmetic thing.”
We might not know the answers yet, but Kath Read knows what doesn’t work. “Shame never made anyone healthy, not did it make them thin,” she says. “No matter what reason we’re thin or fat, we’re all human beings and we’re people. A lot of people think we are asking for something difficult, when we way we’re treated badly and want to change that. I would like to see us treated as human beings and with basic dignity.”
Keys to a healthy life
Keep television to fewer than two hours a day
Be active outside for at least 60 minutes
Eat breakfast most days
Drink water
Eat together as a family once a day without the TV
Get enough sleep
A version of this story originally appeared in the June 2012 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Photography by Alana Landsberry.
Video: Model with Down syndrome is leading the charge for diversity in the fashion industry.
Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch was strangled to death over the weekend, with her brother confessing to the murder as an ‘honour killing’.
She was strangled in her sleep in her family home in Punjab, Pakistan by her brother, Wasim Azeem, in protest to the “kind of pictures she had been posting online.”
Qandeel’s father, Muhammad Azeem, reported the death to police, and after going on the run, her brother was caught. He then confessed to the murder.
Her videos and pictures aren’t all that different to what other 20-something women are posting.
With 750,000 followers on Facebook, she called herself a “modern day feminist” and was recently writing posts about challenging old practices of Pakistani society.
She was praised for empowering women in a country where gender disparity is outrageously high.
Her brother told police that her videos were “objectionable” and “intolerable” and that he had no regrets over killing her.
At a press conference, he said: “Yes of course, I strangled her. I am not ashamed. We are Baloch and as Baloch we cannot tolerate this.
“Money matters, but family honour is more important.
“I was determined either to kill myself or kill her.
“I am not embarrassed at all over what I did. Whatever was the case, it [Qandeel’s actions] was completely intolerable.”
He then confessed to how he killed her.
“She was on the ground floor while our parents were asleep on the rooftop.
“It was around 10.45pm when I gave her a tablet … and then killed her.”
His father has told press he believes Wasim killed her under the guidance of his older brother Aslam Shaheen. Both have now been charged with murder.
While local police have said they’d be seeking ‘maximum punishment’, an ‘honour killing’ means that the incident can be tried as a private offence. This could lead to the accused being let off as a pardon by the victim’s family.
So your daughter brought her new boyfriend to dinner and you realised he's not her ideal suitor. Fear not, Alissa Warren has spoken to the experts and has this surprising advice.
It’s the announcement every mother hopes she’s lucky enough to make. The arrival of a baby girl signals endless hopes and dreams of a future filled with dress-up dolls, pigtails and plaits, netball games and school dances.
“She’s dating a loser!”
It’s the announcement every mother hopes she’s lucky enough to NEVER make. Ever.
But it happens. A lot.
Psychologist Jo Lamble says, “many girls go through a bad boy phase. These guys ooze testosterone, which is attractive. They often try to tame the bad boy. It’s a form of gentle rebellion.”
And so many of us have been there.
At sweet sixteen, I dated a guy who had a car. A fast one. I don’t remember much else about why I actually went out with him. At the same time, I had a girlfriend dating a guy who went to an exclusive boys’ school with strict rules about the way they wore their uniform in public. He dyed his hair blue, wore no tie and smoked under the stairs at the train station. Swoon.
We were equally smitten with our loser-loves.
But sometimes these relationships don’t pass as quickly as parents may like and they start to become toxic.
And before you know it, a dreaded conversation looms over you and your daughter like a cloud of bum-puffed cigarette smoke.
Do you tell your daughter she’s dating a douchbag?
The answer? No. “My general advice is to be careful,” Lamble says, “you don’t want to drive her further into his arms. Obviously if there are any signs of domestic violence, then it’s a far more serious matter that needs to be managed carefully. [Otherwise] sit back and observe.”
Ugh. That’s right. Observe the slug pouring himself all over your baby girl. The baby girl who liked it when you cut her grapes in half. The baby girl who once asked you to help her put her seatbelt on.
Strap in. Everyone’s in for a ride but you can make it to your destination. Start with making a little extra room.
Because before you ban this boofhead from your home, Lamble suggests, “invite him over – a lot. Let your daughter see how he fits in with your family. See how she is with him. Does he bring out the best in her? It’s about your daughter’s happiness, not whether you like him or not.”
Most of the time, it’s because we’ve all been there. We’ve been dumped. Dumped by the guy we believed was our true love.
And oh, the heartache.
My eyes well up for my sixteen-year-old-self standing at the driveway of the school carpark, talking to my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriends-best-friend who is moments away from telling me that he was breaking up with me. For his friend. Who couldn’t break up with me because he still really liked me. “Huh? But if he likes me, why is he breaking up with me?” My friends looked on in pity and wonderment from the science lab above us.
I don’t believe a relationship was dissected with more enthusiasm and confusion until Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie.
I doubt my ex-boyfriend and his best friend would even remember this blip on their relationship rollercoaster. It’s highly likely, nor would their parents. But why?
“When it comes to a son, you often have two women competing to be the most important woman in their life,” says Lamble. “We worry more about our daughters because we relate to the idea of getting hurt. Most of us clearly remember having our hearts broken by a guy who was never good for us.”
Because that’s when the real problem starts, right?
As Steve Martin so beautifully said in Father of the Bride, “you worry about her meeting the wrong kind of guy, the kind of guy who only wants one thing … Then, you stop worrying about her meeting the wrong guy, and you worry about her meeting the right guy. That’s the greatest fear of all, because, then you lose her.”
But you don’t have to.
You don’t need to lose your daughter. Whether she’s dating a douchebag or not.
Lamble says, “if you want to stay close to your adult child, it’s important to accept their choices of partner … and that includes accepting them dating someone you hate.”
And that means loving your baby girl as unconditionally and joyously as you did the moment she was born.
While you’re trying to get your morning hit of caffeine, spare a moment of thought for the soul trying to pump out 217 lattes in 10 minutes.
These are all the thoughts and pet peeves that are probably going through their mind at this second.
The best tip you should take after reading this? Never be rude to your barista. (But also, never be rude in general.)
1.“Can I get a quarter packet of sugar in that?” Who you trying to kid?
2.When people ask for extra hot milk, it starts to burn, which ruins the coffee flavour and milk texture. And when you ask for extra hot soy it’s almost definitely going to burn!
3.“Oh sorry, I meant that coffee to be iced. Did I not say iced?” No, you specifically did not.
4.We dread seeing interns or assistants walking in – they’ve always got 164 different coffee orders which take FOREVER.
5.“Are the beans organic?” Reallllly?
6.Some customers will try and show you they have more knowledge than you about coffee – this just isn’t true.
7.“A three-quarter shot decaf soy latte, please.” Orders like this are the bane of our existence. So. Many. Steps.
8.There will always be that one customer that complains about their coffee but still comes back the next day.
9.“Half skim, half full milk please.” If I’m not in a good mood, you’re going to get whatever is in my jug.
10.We try our best to make pretty pictures in your coffee but it’s not as likely to happen with almond milk, for example. Full cream milk is the best for latte art.
11.We get it, you’re in a hurry. But if you try and rush us, your coffee won’t be great. If you want quick coffee, there’s a 7/11 down the road.
12.“Is it too late to make mine soy?” “No, but it’ll be an extra 50c.” “Don’t worry then.”
13.“A small coffee, thanks.” Latte, capp, flate white, espresso… WHAT KIND, DAMMIT.
14.If you’re rude and ask for skim, you’re getting full.
15.Without even meaning to, we’re going to judge you on your order.
16.There are those anal customers who ask for three medium-sized ice cubes in their long black, or for their sugar to be stirred anti-clockwise. True story.
17.If you’ve been lining up for a while and get to the counter, you better know what you want to order.
18.There is no greater satisfaction for a barista then pouring out the perfect amount of crema on an espresso, getting the right extraction time on a shot, or having a customer love the new coffee you’ve made.
19.The smell of coffee grinds almost never leaves your skin; it has serious staying power.
Statistics show that more than 2,700 Australian women – mothers, sisters and daughters – are living with HIV. You might not think you know anyone, but these five women, who are bravely speaking out to de-stigmatise the disease, will make you think again.
Abby Landy, 24
Abby Landy was deeply suspicious something was wrong when, at 23, she developed cold sores for the first time in her life. The busy law student went to see her GP saying that coincidentally, she was so tired she could barely get out of bed.
It was a week after she’d broken up with her boyfriend.
The GP dismissed Abby’s concerns but at her insistence, gave her a sexual health screening to be on the safe side – which she now knows does not include testing for HIV. The results were good, but Abby wasn’t getting any better, she could barely stand up and a mysterious rash was spreading over her body.
She took herself to a nearby hospital emergency department and was given a script for an antihistamine and told to go home. But her mind still wasn’t at ease.
“I’ve never had a cold sore ever and I was just getting sicker and sicker.”
She called her ex-boyfriend, but far from reassuring her, when he said, “don’t worry babe, at least you’ll remember me forever”, she panicked.
“I’d googled the symptoms, everything was pointing in the direction of HIV so I went back to my GP and insisted I have a test. She told me I was an Aussie girl, heterosexual, very low risk, not to worry. But when the clinic called and asked me to come back in urgently, in my heart I knew. My GP was almost in tears when she told me I had HIV. My first thought was ‘I don’t want to live with this'”.
Abby put her studies on hold and moved back in with her family to focus on getting well, she researched the virus heavily and found support groups for women like her, who offered companionship, education and understanding, and with advanced treatments she has recovered well.
“I think going to the support group was one of the best things I did because the women I met were all amazing and I come away feeling as if I wasn’t a victim, I realised I had nothing to moan about and most importantly that I wasn’t alone, other women were dealing with this too.”
Abby has made an impressive recovery. She is now in Sydney working full time as a legal assistant, and is finishing her law degree part time. In between work, study, meeting friends for drinks or going for a jog, she squeezes in time to speak publicly about her experience of being HIV positive.
“HIV is a human condition, it can affect anyone, it doesn’t discriminate. We all have to be agents for our own sexual health and it has to be on our radar that anyone can get HIV, even young Aussie heterosexuals. By talking about it and putting faces to it, we educate and it’s harder to hate.”
Cath Smith, 42
In many ways, being diagnosed with HIV was a lifesaving moment for Cath Smith. For almost a decade the vivacious office administrator had been silently suffering from depression that was at times so severe, she prayed before bed that she wouldn’t wake up in the morning.
In a moment of steely resolve, she decided to try and rebuild her self-esteem by doing small things that made her feel good about herself, like donating blood again, a tangible way of saving another’s life.
But when a security sealed letter arrived from the blood bank not long after her last donation, it dramatically changed the course of her life journey. Cath was HIV positive, she had contracted the virus from her ex-boyfriend.
Instead of diving into a darker state of mind, the diagnosis was the inspiration she needed to get up and live her life.
“That day I thought ‘Right, get up, get out of bed, start living your life, otherwise you’ll die. This is my purpose, this is what I’m here for, I’m not done yet’.”
She packed up her hectic city life and moved to the Victorian high country, looking to therapeutically rekindle her passion for horses and snow skiing, and in her ‘spare time’ she has made it her mission to empower other women to look after their sexual health. Cath is now a highly sought after speaker, who talks to community groups, young women and high school children about HIV.
She says the grim-reaper like attitudes of the 1980’s are still one of the biggest hurdles she faces.
“I’m a stigma warrior!” She smiles. “HIV is not the death sentence it once was and you won’t be infected by having physical contact with me! I am open about HIV.
“Young women need to know that it can happen to them, but they also need to know that whilst it is an immensely challenging place to find yourself in, HIV is just one small part of you, it doesn’t define who you are.”
She says it is vital that every woman knows her sexual health status, “Don’t assume you don’t have HIV, you need to be tested to know your status. If I can contract HIV anyone can.
“If my story stops one woman contracting HIV then I’ve achieved. By talking about it, I hope to empower other women to share their stories too.”
Rebecca Matheson, 45
“I don’t have time to be sick!” Says busy mum of three Rebecca Matheson. And she’s not joking. With children ranging in age from seventeen to three, the 45 year old Melbourne mum runs an unenviable diary. She works full time and spends most weekends behind the wheel of ‘mum’s taxi’ service, and if she’s not ferrying kids around to ballet, sport or social activities, they’re packing her house to its rafters.
“I have a house full of teenagers every weekend,” she laughs, “we are a very typical family.”
Rebecca has been living with HIV for more than 20 years. She was diagnosed with the virus after a backpacking holiday to Africa in 1994. She has defied the odds, and proudly pushed the boundaries.
She married, started a family, and has lived a healthy happy life, despite the dark cloud that hung over her initial diagnosis.
“I’m a mother, wife I’m involved in my community, and I just get on with my life every day, HIV doesn’t define me at all.”
“I’ve never had an AIDS defining illness, when I came home from Africa, I thought I had malaria, I didn’t imagine it would be HIV, but I’ve maintained my health, I look after myself and do everything I can to manage the virus.”
Disclosure, she says, is still one of the most challenging aspects of being HIV positive.
“I chose who I tell very carefully, I’m confident, I have a great support network around me but I’m well aware there are still huge misconceptions about HIV. I was lucky that my husband saw HIV as only a part of who I am.”
She says it’s important to speak out about the virus, because “we want people to know you can live well with HIV,” but warns that speaking out is also a double edged sword.
“We also still need to deter them from high risk activities. It’s not all rosy, modern medicine has come a long way but there’s still a long way to go, we are a long way from a cure and you need to still be careful about your sexual health.”
Michelle Wesley, 49
“I rang my parents and asked them to buy me a ticket back to Australia so I could come home and say goodbye to everyone. That was 24 years ago and I’m still here,” Michelle Wesley says proudly.
Michelle’s journey with HIV began when she was diagnosed in London in the late 1980’s. She’d been living out a dream backpacking when she landed in Italy, and firmly in with the wrong crowd.
Her bourgeois new European friends introduced her to heroin, and she quickly became addicted.
Michelle returned to London seeking help to overcome her addiction, which was successful, but three years down the track, she discovered she was HIV positive.
“It was shocking, unbelievable. A million thoughts went through my head and none at the same time, I was numb. I instantly felt shame, guilt and I felt dirty. I assumed I would get AIDS and die and my doctors told me I’d probably be dead within four years.”
“I was unaware of HIV, I’d heard about a group of men in San Francisco dying of AIDS but that was the extent of what I knew. There was no treatment, very little information and I was a woman with HIV which was rare, I was a minority within a minority, it was so isolating.”
Michelle developed an extreme case of shingles and became very ill, she suffered nerve damage and spent six months in a wheel chair alone and a world away from her family.
“I called my parents and asked them to bring me home so I could die in Australia,” she says frankly.
“I was living day by day and there was no sense of hope at all for my future.”
Her return home was the turning point. She began taking steps to recover, new medications became available and step by step she rebuilt her life. It took her eight painful years to get back on her feet, but she went back to school, re-established a career and today she says she is not just surviving, but thriving. She is passionate about community awareness of HIV and now works as a support co-ordinator at Positive Women Victoria.
“I’ve learned to live with HIV, I co-exist with it. I’ve now lived more years with HIV than without it,” she says, “I have a very rich, full, enjoyable life and I make the most of every day.”
Michelle says it’s the stigma that remains most challenging, “there’s still a great fear of HIV because of what’s gone before us, but we are all somebody’s daughter, someone’s sister. If I was walking down the street you wouldn’t know I had HIV, I’m just like you.”
Diane Nyoni, 45
Just three years ago, Diane Nyoni was dying. She’d been rushed to hospital so unwell, that doctors thought she had brain cancer. The single mother of four underwent emergency surgery to remove lesions from her brain but was shocked when doctors told her she didn’t have cancer at all, she was in fact suffering the effects of AIDS.
“I had absolutely no idea I had AIDS,” she says, “in hindsight it made sense, I’d been suffering a number of illnesses and my immune system wasn’t functioning at all. I’d had this lump on the side of my neck that wouldn’t go away and although I’d been going to the doctors to get help, I’d been misdiagnosed, I never imagined it was AIDS.”
Diane had contracted the virus from her ex-husband, she believes it was in the last few months of their relationship, when their son Izaiah, now 11, was conceived. The marriage ended before Izaiah was born and Diane worked hard to build a new life for her family, she went back to school, graduated and began a career working with women suffering domestic violence, unaware she was HIV positive.
“When the doctors traced back how long I had t, it coincided with breast feeding Izaiah, I was terrified I may have passed it on to him. It was the longest weekend of my life waiting for tests results to come in, but thankfully he’s all clear. I was not a high risk person, I was a married woman, we’d lived in the US for a while where there is a strong culture of testing so I knew I was negative when we married and I trusted my husband,” she says.
Despite the physical and emotional challenges she has faced, Diane has refused to become ‘a victim’.
“I went from being the one who offered support in a crisis, to the one needing support and that was tough,” she says, “but I wanted to work and I wanted to contribute to the community so I began speaking publicly about AIDS to educate and raise awareness about the virus, I became an activist.
“Women with AIDS are almost invisible in this country, we need to talk about it, support one another and educate people about what living with HIV and AIDS really means. We are everyday women, mothers, daughters, educated women, women from all walks of life.”
Diane is keen to stress that AIDS is a manageable illness and with the right treatment, she says it’s possible to live a long and fulfilling life. She is passionate about developing a greater culture of testing in Australia.
“I’d rather have AIDS than brain cancer. You can live with AIDS in the same way you can live with other illnesses, but the only way we’ll get on top of this is to encourage testing as much as possible. It’s better to know and be treated, the illness is manageable if it’s treated early.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the August 2015 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Photography by Eamon Gallagher.
.jpg?fit=900%2C750)
.png?resize=380%2C285)
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
.png?resize=380%2C285)
