By Jason Chester for MailOnline

Published: 8:02 PM EDT, March 14, 2024 | Updated: 8:36 PM EDT, March 14, 2024

She once described herself a ‘little girl from Croydon with a dream’ – and at last night’s Brit Awards, they all seemed to finally come true for Raye. 

The singer-songwriter, 26, from South London, made Brit Award history when she scooped six accolades in one night – beating records set by Blur, Harry Styles and Adele. 

Raye, whose full name is Rachel Agatha Keen, won Best New Artist, Songwriter of the Year, Song of the Year, Best R&B Act, Artist of the Year and Mastercard’s Album of the Year.

For the final award, the star – who was forced to release her music independently after being restricted by a previous record label – was in floods of tears as she was joined by her grandmother on stage.

She said: ‘You just don’t understand what this means to me. I’m ugly crying on national television.

‘All I ever wanted to be was an artist, and now I’m an artist with an album of the year. Thank you so much, this is too much – come on Grandma, let’s go.’

As a teenager, Raye attended BRIT school for two years before then dropping out because she ‘hated being told how to write a song’. 

When she was 17-year-old, the rising star was assaulted by a music producer – and revealed how she turned to alcohol and drugs to cope. 

Since then, Raye has appointed her father as her manager while she also works closely with her sister. 

In June 2021, Raye revealed that her record label, Polydor Records, had been withholding her debut album for several years – forcing her to then release her music independently. 

Here FEMAIL delves into Raye’s incredible rise to fame and her remarkable musical comeback.

South London upbringing and dropping out of school

Rachel Keen was born in Tooting to a Ghanaian-Swiss mother and English father and was one of three daughters.  

When Raye was still a child, the family relocated to Croydon – where she attended Woodcote High School. 

In an interview with F Word magazine, Raye said Croydon was a ‘really great place to grow up’.

She explained: ‘[It is] very down to earth, very multi-cultured, very fun, really great. I grew up in the church as well, so I go to church every Sunday with the family. 

‘That’s where I learnt how to sing and understand my love for music.’ 

When she was 14 years old, Raye was accepted into Brit School – whose alumnae include Adele, Ella Eyre, Jessie J and Leona Lewis.  

Speaking to The Times earlier this month, Raye explained how she dropped out of the school after two years because she ‘hated’ being told how to write a song.

She said: ‘It’s not in my nature to follow rules. I didn’t get on with them in school and I don’t understand why they even exist in music. 

‘I love songs that don’t do what you expect them to. For me it’s liberating to write something sonically different every time that doesn’t sound like anyone else. Otherwise, what’s the point?’

What’s more, the star also told the BBC that she felt ‘confined’ as a student at Brit school – as other students were all ‘cool, underground, indie artists’. 

Bagging first record deal 

When she was 16 years old, radio host Clara Amfo played Raye’s music on her show for the first time.

The following year, she signed a four-album deal with the record label Polydor.

In 2017, she was shortlisted for the BBC Music Sound of… award and came in third place. 

After this, she won at the ASCAP London Music Awards and was nominated for a BRIT award for her You Don’t Know Me single in 2018.

Around this time, Raye was assaulted by a music producer – who forced his hand between her legs when she was 17 years old.  

Whilst performing on the Pyramid Stage last year at Glastonbury she paused between singing the song saying: ‘This next song is about sexual abuse, and rape, and sexual violence. And I know that’s heavy, okay.

‘But I also know one in four men and women will experience that in their lifetime. So I know that I’m not alone when I sing this today.’

In an interview with Cosmopolitan last year, she said she still suffers from panic attacks and PTSD regularly.

‘When I think about the panic attacks, the PTSD…you realise that someone’s actions become your burden to carry, and there is nowhere you can put it other than a therapy session,’ she said.

‘Every girl I know in this industry has some sort of story to tell me. The studio is such a vulnerable space.

‘And if you say something, you create an enemy who will spread rumours or blacklist you – and you need those connections to open doors for yourself.

‘Even though the people decide very much what’s consumed on the outside, inside, the music industry is still very much a gatekept society.’

Despite the buzz around her music and her regular appearances at festivals, Raye’s debut album never materialised – as she later revealed she was in a stand-off with her record label. 

Battle with record label and turning to drugs 

In an emotional interview with Lous Theroux last November 2023, Raye revealed that she was ‘constantly in some kind of sedation’ when she first started her career.

During the television interview, Raye said all she wanted was to be ‘in control of her life’ as she discussed her frustration with her old label Polydor for not allowing her to release an album. 

During the conversation, Raye admitted to taking ‘codine’ and ‘MDMA’ as she ‘reached her limit’ and had ‘nothing left to lose’. 

She said: ‘I think I wasn’t able to get along with my career because I was just constantly in some form of sedation just to get along with it. Whether it be weed or other things which I write about on my album. 

‘This is the thing, when I became sober, I realised, wow, I can’t do this sober. Like, this is deep. It’s actually deep.

‘It’s so deep what I’d realized I’d actually been doing to myself as a person to try and be somebody that they wanted me to be.

‘And it’s so sad. So I just got into that point where I was just like, “What is my life right now?” “What is the point?”

‘Yeah, so I just was at a point where I just had nothing left to lose. Yeah, so I was just like, “F*** it.” I’ve absolutely reached my limit.’

Raye says she reached breaking point when her label would not let her release an album – which led to her venting her frustrations on social media.

She continued: ‘But that is how far you push me. They either listen to me now, listen to their artists in pain, or we part ways, and they can save themselves this headache because I’m about to make it a headache.’

After Raye started giving interviews about her label not allowing her to release her debut album, she was able to part ways with Polydor in 2021. 

Raye’s album My 21st Century Blues is her first project as an independent artist

The singer touches on substance abuse, assault and sexual violence and anxiety in her lyrics, and previously explained why she didn’t want to shy away from ‘difficult’ topics.

She told MailOnline: ‘I just want to be a woman discussing uncomfortable topics that we don’t talk about, these are all things I battled with in the darkness and in silence.

‘You hope in writing about these songs and putting them out into the world, you just hope that people hear them, and and relate to them also.

‘It’s very much medicine in a way that you have a different feeling to to put quite a painful emotion to it.

‘For me is just very empowering, and I hope it can be medicine for anyone else who who needs it.’ 

During her interview with F Word magazine, Raye revealed that her dad is her manager while she also works closely with her sister. One of her younger sister has also had music featured in a Target advert in the US.

Raye added: ‘Music is in all our genes. Mum is the next one, she’s taking some of the workload with Dad. She’s worked in the NHS all her life so she is the next, hopefully in a year or two she will be able to join the team and it’ll be a full family empire.’ 

TikTok support

In January 2023, Raye’s single ‘Escapism’ went to UK number one and became a huge hit on TikTok. The single now has been used in over 700,000 videos on the social media platform.

The star partnered up with TikTok for the launch of their #ElectronicMusic campaign in September and her single Call on Me was also named the platform’s Song of the Summer in 2021.

Speaking to Cosmo Middle East, Raye explained how she never expected to gain such success on TikTok.

She said: ‘I think my sister pointed it out [it was blowing up on TikTok]. I checked, and it had like 1000 videos made to the sound.

‘I was like “oh that’s exciting!” and then the next day it was 2000 and it just kept doubling out of nowhere and I was like “wow!”

‘It’s the kind of thing you can’t plan. You can’t be like “Okay I’m gonna have a viral hit”. You know, it just doesn’t work like that. I’m just grateful that TikTok was like “Yeah we like that. Let’s make so many videos to it”. I was very overwhelmed.’

Despite her music’s sudden surge in popularity, Raye told The Times she does her own makeup and hair while on tour.

She also bought a house in Streatham, South-West London two years and continues living with her two sisters.  

 Career-defining turnaround at BRITs

Raye’s incredible sweep at the Brits last night marks one of the music industry’s greatest ever comebacks – just three years after Polydor refused to release any of her albums. 

This led to Raye leaving the company and releasing her critically acclaimed, and now award winning, debut My 21st Century Blues as an independent artist.

The singer/songwriter scooped the Song of the year award for her hit Escapism ft 070 Shake, shortly before also taking home the R&B Act gong and Best New Artist.

‘I’m shaking. I don’t really know what to say right now, but… thank you. I’ve always dreamed of saying that,’ she said as the reached the podium to accept her first award of the night.

Referencing her new beginning in her Best New Artist Speech, Raye said: ”I have to thank my mum and my dad who are also part of my team, and my grandma. Yes grandma! I, in ways, do feel like a new artist. I released my first song when I was 15, my first mixtape when I was 16, don’t go and listen to it because it’s not that good any more.

‘But I do feel like a new artist, I got to start again. The artist I was three years ago would not believe what she’s seeing today. I’m my own boss now, I’m in control. Thank you!’ 

She also scooped the first ever BRIT Award for R&B act, which is voted for by the public via Instagram and is a new standalone genre category after musicians and fans complained about R&B being conjoined with the pop last year.

Raye acknowledged the the uproar in her speech, telling the crowd: ‘Look I just wanna say, when I was about 16, 15 years old, I wanted to be an R&B artist, that’s what I would say. And I was told, I think, a lie that R&B doesn’t sell in the UK so I needed to learn how to make different kinds of music.’

‘I know that’s a bit shady but I need to say R&B is so important and there are so many R&B artists in the UK eating it up. I wanna shout out to Mahalia, who campaigned for this award, Cleo Sol, who’s immaculate, Sault. This really is a lot – thank you.’

Raye also won Songwriter of the Year, which was announced ahead of the live ceremony, with host Clara Amfo handing her the gong in a surprise moment after her Best New Artist win.

Clara – who gave Raye her first ever radio play – told the star: ‘There is no such thing as an overnight success, I am so proud of you.’

ALDI shoppers can barely contain their excitement after the retailer unveiled a new Easter toy.

The German discounter, which has more than 1,000 branches in Britain, is to add a new root vegetable to its shelves, but not the edible kind.

1

The chain will introduce an Easter Kevin in stores on March 14, with two outfits to choose from.

Shoppers can pick up a sheep or lamb themed version for £3.99 from the Specialbuys section of their nearest branch.

But that means stock is limited, so you’ll have to act quickly if you’re keen to buy one for the kids, or even for yourself.

Shoppers have already noticed that the toys, based on Aldi’s traditional Christmas mascot, will hit the shelves in a few weeks.

One said: “I don’t need these… but I WANT them”, while another simply said: “Cute”.

A third fan, tagging a friend, said: “Please set the alarm in the phone and support me in my next quest.”

And a fourth could barely contain his excitement, saying: “I can’t deal with this.”

If you want to pick up one of the toys, remember that Aldi doesn’t do deliveries, so you’ll have to head to the nearest branch.

You can find your nearest store using the retailer’s online search tool.

It comes after Aldi fans queued outside stores from the early hours after the retailer launched new Kevin the Carrot toys ahead of Christmas.

Shoppers went berserk over the stuffed animals from William Conker and his friends.

It was much the same in 2022, with shoppers having to queue outside their local branches from 4am.

Others were left in a virtual queue after trying to get their hands on one of the cute toys online.

And in recent years, real fights have broken out in the aisles as parents fought to get their hands on them.

How to save money at Aldi

If you plan to do some shopping this spring while picking up one of the Kevin the Carrot toys, you can save some money in the process.

It’s worth looking out for products with red stickers, which staff add to items when they have been reduced in price.

Aldi tends to add them to items in the morning, so if you want to get the best discounts, it’s best to get in early.

Also keep an eye on the discounted fruit and vegetables: according to deal expert Tom Church, the retailer tends to cut six items every two weeks to “crazy low” prices.

Get ahead of the rest by signing up for Aldi’s newsletter and also following the retailer on social media.

It often announces upcoming deals across its two channels, so you can be the first to get the best prices.

And of course, take advantage of Aldi’s cheap alcohol, which can save you some money compared to branded versions.

Do you have a money problem that needs to be solved? Get in touch by emailing money@the-sun.co.uk.

Moreover, you can join us Sun Money chats and tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories.

By Connie Rusk for Mailonline

Published: 3:07 PM EST, January 31, 2024 | Updated: 7:46 PM EST, January 31, 2024

Nearly every week for a decade, Iri Kassel picked up sick Palestinian children at Israel's Erez border crossing with Gaza and took them with their guardians to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

But on October 7, the border crossing was attacked by Palestinian militants who shot at passport control booths and magnetic scanners as they stormed into southern Israel.

The deadly attacks plunged Israel into all-out war in Gaza and disrupted the work of Road to Recovery, the Israeli nonprofit that Mr. Kassel volunteers for, which transports more than 1,500 Palestinian patients to Israeli hospitals every year.

Several of the group's volunteers were killed in the Hamas-led attack, including Vivian Silver, a prominent peace activist who was killed in her home in Kibbutz Be'eri in southern Israel. Others were taken hostage, such as Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz, a couple in their eighties from Nir Oz, a kibbutz near the Gaza border. Dozens of others lost loved ones or were evacuated from their homes near Gaza.

The organization's staff and volunteer drivers were devastated. “It was a punch to the stomach,” Mr. Kassel said. Even for those who survived the attacks, he said, there was “an almost physical pain.”

Road to Recovery was founded in 2010 by Yuval Roth, a peace activist whose brother had been kidnapped and murdered by Hamas militants nearly two decades earlier. The group helps Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank access medical treatment in Israel, where health care is among the most advanced in the region.

To receive treatment in Israel, Palestinian families must overcome several obstacles. The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health must agree to cover the costs of treatment. Families then had to get permission from Hamas to leave Gaza and from Israel to cross the border.

Once in Israel, the cost of traveling to a hospital can become prohibitive for many Palestinian families. That's where Road to Recovery comes into the picture.

Yael Noy, the organization's CEO, said its work is as much about humanitarian aid as it is about promoting personal ties between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Palestinians see Israelis as soldiers at checkpoints, and many Israelis don't see Palestinians at all,” she said in an interview. “These rides are an opportunity for a clean, direct human encounter.”

Alexandre Carrier looked over at the stone-faced new guy to his left on the Gatineau Olympiques bench and noticed that he had another teammate’s stick in his hands. Ever the helpful sort, Carrier politely pointed out Yakov Trenin’s mistake. Trenin turned his head, stared at Carrier for a moment, and responded.

“Yes.”

Confused but also curious, Carrier then asked Trenin another question, one in which “no” was the only possible answer. Trenin again eyed him, expressionless.

“Yes.”

“I’m like, OK, he has no clue what I’m saying,” Carrier recalled with a laugh. “This was going to be a work in progress.”

Trenin was 17 years old when he left Russia to pursue his hockey dreams halfway around the world in North America. He had done his homework, too, taking classes to learn some rudimentary English so he at least could have a hope of understanding his coaches and fitting in with his teammates. The whole situation was terrifying.

Then he showed up in Quebec.

“I didn’t know they only speak French there,” Trenin said. “I was preparing for English and I get there and they all speak French.”

Trenin can laugh about it now, nearly a decade later. His English is excellent, and he’s in his fifth season with the Nashville Predators, with perpetual teammate Carrier owning the stall just across the Bridgestone Arena locker room. But when Trenin first showed up in Gatineau, he was the only Russian on the team — quite literally a stranger in a strange land. He knew nobody. He didn’t understand anybody. It was hard to make out the words the coaches were saying in team meetings. It was hard to communicate with his teammates on the ice. It was hard to fit in, to make friends, to hang out with the guys.

Carrier and the other Olympiques did their best to make Trenin feel welcome. They coaxed him into a volleyball match after a practice. They invited him to the movies “even though he didn’t understand a thing,” Carrier said. They spoke to him in their own sometimes-broken English, and Trenin — who was still new to that language and not very comfortable in it — found it easier to understand them than native English speakers because he found their accents similar to his own.

“You can’t really have a big conversation with him, so you try to just do stuff with him to make him feel part of the team,” Carrier said. “Just get him out of the house.”

Hockey is a global sport, and every time you walk into an NHL locker room, you’re liable to hear three, four, five different languages being spoken at once. Inevitable cliques form, too. The Russian players will have their locker stalls clustered together. The Czech guys on every team will all hang out away from the rink, piling into Bistro Praha for a taste of home when they roll into Edmonton. The Swedes and Finns are taught English throughout their childhoods and are usually at or near fluency, but they still congregate together and hide their conversations from prying ears by speaking their native tongue.

But not everybody has that social safety net. Sometimes, you’re the only Russian in the room, the only Czech, the only Finn, the only native French speaker. And whether you’re a teenager in juniors with no command of English or a 30-something trilingual NHL veteran, it can be difficult to be the only one from your country in the room. It’s isolating. Lonely, even.

“Sometimes, you just want to talk in your native language,” said 34-year-old Evgenii Dadonov, a 10-year NHL vet and the only Russian in the Dallas Stars room. “I can talk English, but I act a little different in Russian. I’m myself more. I’m not thinking too much when I talk and relax. In English, I’m always thinking and it’s harder to relax. It’s just something you deal with over here.”

---

Few players command a locker room the way Pierre-Édouard Bellemare does. He’s a big personality with a big voice, a big smile and a big laugh, and he’s everybody’s favorite teammate. As one of just two NHLers from France (Columbus’ Alexandre Texier is the other), he speaks flawless French and English, and he is fully conversant in Swedish, too. Teammates headed for summer vacations in Paris pepper him with questions and requests for restaurant recommendations. Others regularly chirp him about how “bougie” and “arrogant” the French are, and he gleefully gives it right back.

Approaching his 39th birthday and on his fifth NHL team, the Seattle Kraken, there isn’t a room in the hockey world in which Bellemare couldn’t fit in.

“I can come into a team really easily, talking to the Swedish guys or talking to the French-speaking guys or talking to the English-speaking guys,” he said. “It’s been my superpower.”

But back in 2006, Bellemare was a scared 21-year-old on the phone with his mom back in France, trying to hold back the tears because he hated walking through those doors. He had left France to play in Sweden’s second-tier league, one of the first Frenchmen to do so, and the transition had been soul-crushing. He had the skills and he had the work ethic, but he couldn’t communicate with anyone. He didn’t speak a lick of Swedish or English at the time. About the only Swedish word he knew was the one for French people, and he heard it often, usually under his new teammates’ breath as they laughed among themselves about the new guy.

The team in Leksand sent Bellemare and some of the Finnish imports to a professor’s house a few times for some basic lessons, but it was pointless, because, “At that time, I didn’t understand s—.”

“My first couple of months in Sweden were terrible,” Bellemare said. “Everybody was like, ‘Why are we bringing in a French guy? France has nothing to bring in hockey.’ This is how they saw me.”

If not for Bellemare’s mom, Frederique, his hockey career might have ended right there. But Frederique told him to embrace the challenge, that he was in Sweden not just to further his hockey career but to broaden his cultural horizons. So Bellemare broke through the language barrier like he was the Kool-Aid Homme. He learned both English and Swedish simultaneously, and shockingly fast — mostly through subtitles on movies and TV shows, as so many other international players do to hone their English once they get to the NHL.

“I was kind of in a panic mode to learn the languages,” Bellemare said. “I learned both languages really fast because I had no choice. The brain is such a wonderful thing. When you’re in a panic mode, he knows, he recognizes and suddenly you get abilities to learn a little bit faster. Nobody spoke my language, right? So I had to learn fast.”

Bellemare had to overcome more than just the language gap, though. The French had that “bougie” reputation in Sweden, too, and he had to overcome that resentment. The funny thing was that the Swedish league was the bougie one compared to what Bellemare had in France, where he was one of the country’s top players but was hardly making any money. In Sweden, he had free gear and free food. He had three hours of ice time every day instead of one. It was a hockey paradise compared to what he had in France.

So that became Mom’s advice: “Show those guys that they’re the ones who are all spoiled.”

“Once I started learning the language, they saw and said, ‘OK, this kid is trying,’” Bellemare said. “I became the hardest-working kid, and the happiest kid because I was in a sick locker room every day, with all this stuff I didn’t have back home in France. And all along, my mom was like, ‘How cool is it that a year from now, you’ll be trilingual?’ I was like, ‘That ain’t gonna happen.’ But it did happen!”

All these years later, Bellemare’s wife is Swedish and his kids, ages 6 and 4, already are bilingual, and “really close” to adding French to their repertoire.

“Like I said, it’s been a superpower,” Bellemare said, beaming. “Even though it was terrible at first.”

Unlocking the human brain’s massive potential isn’t the only silver lining that emerges from that kind of isolation. Rookie center Waltteri Merelä is the only Finn on the Tampa Bay Lightning roster, and while he admitted that he’d love to have one or two more in the room, it’s forced him to go beyond his comfort zone and make friends he might otherwise never have made.

Early in the season, Merelä and his wife learned that they live in the same neighborhood as goalies Jonas Johansson and Matt Tomkins, so they started hanging out. Now their wives and girlfriends have become close, too.

“When it’s just you, you kind of need to go find the guys that you’re going to hang out with,” Merelä said. “You don’t have that one guy you’re always hanging out with.”

Bellemare says he hasn’t experienced the animosity, othering and xenophobia in the NHL that he faced in Sweden. In his experience, the European players in the NHL typically bond over their cultural overlaps rather than focus on the divisions. There are Finns who played in Sweden, Czechs who played in Finland, Slovaks who played in Russia, Russians who played in Germany, and on and on. By the time they get to the NHL, many Europeans have a history with their new teammates, or at least some shared heritage to bond over. Which leads to a lot of good-natured chirping, particularly when a tournament like the World Junior Championship is going on.

The Swedish-Finnish rivalry is as heated as it gets, and that allows a rookie like Merelä to walk into the room and start giving it to a future Hall of Famer like Victor Hedman.

“Yeah, I can talk s— with him,” Merelä said. “But he’s always talking s— to me about Finland. It’s fun, it’s just a normal thing. It helps make you a part of everything.”

---

English is the universal language in hockey, the skeleton key to communication between nations. Many Europeans come to North America fluent, but nearly all can speak the language a little.

“The first few years, you just hang out with the Europeans,” said Buffalo’s Zemgus Girgensons, the only Latvian on the Sabres roster. “If you all don’t talk that great of English, you can talk to each other and help each other learn. You just manage, and try to learn English as fast as you can.”

In the rare instance when a player doesn’t speak any English at all, teams will sometimes go to great lengths to help them feel comfortable — especially for a potential star player. When the Blackhawks signed Artemi Panarin and brought him over from Russia for the 2015-16 season, they also signed Panarin’s buddy and SKA Saint Petersburg teammate Viktor Tikhonov, who grew up in San Jose, Calif., and speaks perfect English and Russian. Tikhonov could play, but he was brought over more to be Panarin’s friend and guide to America than he was to provide scoring depth. Once Panarin had his feet underneath him, Tikhonov was rather coldly traded to Arizona.

Some friends of the SKA Saint Petersburg program went so far as to set up Panarin with an interpreter, Andrew Aksyonov, who, along with his wife, Yulia Mikhaylova, were Saint Petersburg natives who had been living in Chicago. The couple picked Panarin up at the airport, took him into their home and showed him where to get groceries and the like. It was supposed to be just until Tikhonov arrived, but they became close, and the Blackhawks even hired Aksyonov to serve as Panarin’s interpreter.

Anything to make a player feel more comfortable because anxiety off the ice easily can spill onto the ice.

And that anxiety is real. Defenseman Nikita Zaitsev, now the only Russian in the Blackhawks room, said the hardest thing when he first came to North America, leaving Moscow in the KHL for Toronto in the NHL at age 25, was English slang and hockey vernacular. His English was quite good, but he kept hearing words he had never heard before, lingo that’s commonplace in the NHL but gets lost in translation. So he leaned heavily on the other Russian in the room, winger Nikita Soshnikov.

“You just want to confirm something, make sure you’re hearing the right thing,” Zaitsev said. “It can be hard. Sometimes you just want to talk to somebody in Russian. You need that. It’s always going to be hard, especially that first year.”

The culture shock, of course, goes beyond the language. If you come from a small town in Russia or Czechia or wherever and you land in, say, New York or Los Angeles or Toronto, it can be overwhelming. Merelä, for one, is grateful he ended up in Tampa — a real city, yes, but a more manageable one, with a laidback vibe.

“We don’t have really big cities in Finland,” he said. “There are a couple of OK ones, a couple hundred thousand people, but nothing like (North America). So this is probably one of the best places to play. You can figure it out pretty fast and it’s not that big. It’s easy to live here and the weather’s good and all the people are nice. Maybe if I went to some other place, it wouldn’t have been as good.”

Joining a new team is never easy. Joining a new continent is something else entirely. There’s so much to navigate, so much to absorb, so much to learn. And doing it while feeling isolated and alone is almost hard to fathom. So, in Girgensons’ words, “You manage. You figure it out.” Eventually, your new home becomes simply home, and teammates and friendships transcend borders and languages.

But still, even after fully assimilating into North American life, it’s always nice to have someone from back home at your side.

“It’s less of an issue now that I’ve been here a while, but it’s still easier to talk to somebody that speaks your language, and who you can talk to about the news going on in Russia,” Trenin said. “When (the team) brings someone from your country, it’s exciting. You stick together.”

Then he smiled.

“Even if you don’t really like them.”

(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; Photos: John Russell, Bill Wippert, Christopher Mast / NHLI via Getty Images)

At the beginning of last year I received an email from someone I had not heard from in many years. Twenty-two years, to be precise.

It was a friend I had lost touch with over the years; a best friend, in fact; someone I was so close with growing up that people often mistook us for sisters.

As time passed, I have often thought about this person. We met in primary school and were as tight as a sailor’s knot right up until university. And then, just like that, we lost touch.

There was no dramatic ending. No sudden goodbyes. One day we were like glue and then we no longer were. Of course, it’s possible it wasn’t as sudden as I remember. Perhaps she had been pulling away for years, it’s just that I, being a bad friend, failed to notice.

In the absence of answers, I spent the past two decades assuming it was because of my inability to hang on to friendships that she walked away.

I would not have blamed her. You see, there has always been a pattern to the majority of friendships in my life — if, indeed, you can call them that. They are short-lived but intense. When I’m with someone it can feel like the greatest friendship on Earth. But once our lives change direction, the friendship tends to untether, too.

This has left me aged 45 with a huge network of contacts but a dearth of people I would call true friends.

And by this I mean people I can ask to water my plants or look after the dogs if I’m ever left in the lurch. People who will let me cry or rant, and not judge me. People I can call at any hour of the night and be sure they’ll pick up. And people who, in turn, can expect the same from me.

For the past few decades there has only really been my friend Sam, whom I met at university — and whom I only see when she comes to stay once a year. We have a closeness that does not require phone calls and dinners out. We direct message on Instagram. It is an easy friendship; one without expectations and minimal maintenance. It has lasted the distance.

The other is my best friend, Will. But he’s my husband now, so I’m not sure it counts.

Of course, I have wonderful colleagues, many of whom I consider friends, but because I work for a U.S. tech company, I only speak to them via Zoom most of the year. I have incredible neighbours, too, but I’m not sure you would call them deep friendships either.

So what happened to all the others? I have boxes of photographs of me with people I once considered friends but whose lives I now know very little about.

There was the young man who lived in the dorm upstairs from me at university. We walked for hours around London together talking about anything and everything. But the friendship petered out and we went our separate ways when we graduated. He went to Cambridge to teach while I stayed in London to try to make it as a journalist.

Then there was the woman I spent one very intense year partying with. Our friendship was born of a shared ambition to meet men and gad about town. But once we had partied ourselves out, the friendship petered out, too. I think she is a doctor in Australia now, but I can’t be sure. I haven’t spoken to her in decades.

And then there are the incredible female colleagues I spent two decades working alongside when I was a magazine journalist and editor. And all the women who came to my hen party (I think there were eight, though I’m only in touch with two of them now — Sam and my sister).

So, where did everyone else go?

The answer is quite simple: nowhere. They didn’t go anywhere; just like the friendships I had with each of them.

Does it pain me when I think about this? A little. But the truth is I’m no good at the nurturing part required to sustain deep friendship. I don’t call. I rarely text. I forget birthdays and am incapable of reaching out simply to say hi.

You know how some men are not ‘good boyfriend material’? Well, over the years, I’ve come to realise that I’m not ‘good friendship material’.

And so, last year, I decided to make a change.

‘Let me do an executive coaching session on you,’ said my colleague, Lisa, some years back. Lisa worked for the same publishing house as me and was someone whose company I enjoyed very much.

Still, our ‘friendship’ never moved beyond the confines of the office block in which we worked. That was what we had in common. And the moment she left, I doubted we would see each other again.

She was re-training to be an executive coach and needed a guinea pig. She asked. I relented.

I cannot remember the details of the coaching session now, only that there were lots of questions and the end result was some sort of pie chart that showed the priorities that made up my life.

‘This here is work,’ she said, motioning to a giant chunk that took up more than two-thirds of the pie chart.

‘And this . . .’ she said, motioning to the remaining slither, ‘is your relationship.’ That was it. No hobbies. No family. And certainly no friendships.

I felt a bizarre mix of shame and pride. Shame that I had, in 40-odd years of life, failed to accumulate any significant friendships; pride that I was so self-sufficient.

Lisa questioned whether it might be an idea to make room for a friendship or two. I told her my life was simply too full. But when I went home that evening, it dawned on me what a cliche I had become; the mountaineering career woman who kept everyone at arm’s length.

Suddenly, the reality of being friendless later in life felt like a very real scenario. Was I prepared to be without the comfort and nourishment that female friendships so often offer? I wasn’t so sure.

I was also intrigued about what it might be like to have a proper friendship later in life. I had only known deep, meaningful friendship as a young woman and, for the most part, they were relatively fleeting, in part because of my inability to maintain momentum.

It might seem odd to you that a person can reach midlife with just one friend — and just one annual ‘friendship date’ in the diary.

But here’s the truth: I’m good alone. I always have been. I’m naturally a very introverted person; social situations exhaust me and I find small talk intolerable — though I have figured out how to do it, since my job has always required it.

I like deep conversations; getting to know the soul of a person quickly and thoroughly. Since I have been a journalist for more than 20 years, interviewing fascinating women almost every week, I’ve always had that.

I’ll never forget reading an interview with the late chef Anthony Bourdain, where he was questioned about friendship. ‘The kind of care and feeding required of friends, I’m frankly incapable of,’ he replied. ‘I’m not going to remember your birthday. I’m not going to be there for the important moments in your life. We are not going to reliably hang out, no matter how I feel about you. I make very good friends a week at a time.’

I remember reading it and thinking, ‘Yes! Finally, someone has articulated how I feel about friendship.’ The fact that he travelled 365 days of the year, and thus was literally incapable of long-term friendships, was a minor detail.

But around my mid-40s something changed, namely my desire for friendship. Not just to receive it, but to give it as well. I’d just changed jobs, moving from a busy London office filled with women to working largely from home.

And I had largely stopped doing journalism, a fact which meant I was rarely, if ever, interviewing other women. Suddenly, the absence of real friends in my life — those that were there year after year through the good and bad times — was glaringly obvious. This coincided with Lisa re-entering my life, not as a colleague, but a friend, I hoped.

It felt like dating all over again, an exploratory period marked by excitement and nerves. Would Lisa enjoy my company once she saw the real me, unencumbered by any sort of work persona? And would she be able to make room in her life, which was filled with other friends, for someone who had so far proved themselves unreliable friendship-wise?

She began WhatsApping me just to say hello. I’d never really experienced this so took days — even weeks — to reply.

I explained I was bad at the small stuff. I tried to make up for it with grand gestures. I whisked her away for a weekend in the Sussex countryside because she was going through a stressful time. This was a big deal for me. I hadn’t been on holiday with a female friend for more than 20 years. I worried about what we would talk about. Would we get on?

I felt enormous pressure to make a success of it. I remember trying to plan a spare afternoon we had — should I book massages, should we go into the nearby village and go vintage shopping? And yet, I realised, it was a sign I cared deeply about this other person.

In the end, it was the most magical of weekends. We laughed all night and day. We had scones and tea in a little cafe and watched the world pass by, like two old ladies who had been friends for a lifetime. It felt not just good, it felt wonderful — emotionally nourishing but also genuine fun. Something I had, I realised, been missing for a large portion of my life.

‘You are a good friend,’ she told me as we drove back. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me. Largely because I never thought I was capable of it.

I have had to work hard since then to keep it going. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I worried I wouldn’t be able to stick to all the usual rules that dictate conventional friendship. And, by the way, I didn’t. I forgot her birthday (I was a week out!) and I’m still hopeless on WhatsApp. But she understands this. And, over the past year, our friendship has fallen into a wonderful, natural rhythm of its own.

Thanks to Lisa, I now realise friendship can take many forms. It doesn’t have to look like every girl gang film Hollywood trots out, complete with brunches out and phone calls where you pour your heart out. A real friendship is one where a friend allows you to be exactly who you are and stands by you regardless. (Unless you’re a complete beast, of course.)

I also learned that a true friend helps you see who you really are.

I never believed Lisa when she said I was a good friend. I thought she was just being kind. But then another person told me the same thing. It was my best friend from all those years ago at primary school. I hadn’t spoken to her in decades and then, suddenly, there she was in my inbox.

She was a mother now, and had started to think a lot about her own childhood. Which meant she started to think about me, since we had been so close back then. She had read a piece I had written about being bad at friendships — and was reaching out to say I was wrong. I was the best friend she ever had.

And I realised that this is another thing that true friends do — they have the courage to speak up when they believe you are wrong. And by doing so she gave me back both my capacity and confidence for friendship. Perhaps I was not as bad as I had told myself all these years. I just needed a friend to tell me that.

And before you ask, yes, we did meet up some months later and picked up almost exactly where we left off so many years ago.

It was like finding a wonderful old jumper you had loved your entire life and that understood every curve of your body. I’m seeing her again in a few weeks. And this time, something tells me I won’t let her go.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is overrun with homelessness and violent crime, making tourists and locals feel unsafe.

The iconic LA Landmark, once the epitome of glitz and glamour, is disappointing visitors with its dirty sidewalks and repulsive locals who have experienced violent attacks.

It comes as the 1.3-mile stretch along Hollywood Boulevard, often closed for movie premieres and other A-list events, is currently undergoing a much-needed renovation.

The makeover plans are led by the city council and will include wider sidewalks, additional shade trees, a protected mobility lane and pedestrian safety improvements.

Hollywood Boulevard's sidewalks are often congested, certain pieces of infrastructure are outdated, and the area lacks a cohesive, unifying design aesthetic. The Heart of Hollywood plans read.

“The goal of the Hollywood Walk of Fame Master Plan is to bring this iconic walk forward into the 21st century, respecting its rich history while establishing a holistic and long-lasting vision.”

However, plans to address the increase in homelessness and violent crime, which have risen significantly in recent years, are not in place.

Assaults with a deadly weapon, sexual assault and incidents involving homeless people have all increased, according to the report data analyzed by KTLA.

A local woman, Amy Michele, said she was punched in the face while shopping on the boardwalk.

“I've seen people with machetes and knives cutting the air in front of them hoping to catch someone passing by,” she said in a Tiktok video warning others.

'I've seen people selling drugs from the back of a truck.

“I witnessed a hostage situation in one of the apartment complexes on Hollywood Boulevard.

“I got hit on the back of the head by a homeless guy,” she added.

“It's definitely not what we expected,” said tourist Sarah Saryan.

“It's not clean and everything looks like movies,” she explained.

Social media images show rows of tents, people sleeping rough near the famous stars and rubbish strewn across the sidewalks.

The situation has not been improved by a significant reduction in police patrols on the boulevard.

Pre-pandemic, 60 officers were assigned to the Hollywood Entertainment District alone, now that number has been cut in half, according to Steve Nissen, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

“If you feel something that makes you uncomfortable, you don't come back,” Nissen told KTLA.

“Part of feeling safe is not only that the crime statistics are going down, but also that you're walking streets that look clean and these streets are not often clean,” Nissen said.

He added, “When you walk down the street; you don't want to be mistreated or spoken to.

“The idea of ​​modernizing Hollywood Boulevard and making it one of the most beautiful streets in the world still exists.”

Nissen said he hopes the rejuvenation program will be completed in time for the 2028 Olympics.

“We want the rest of the world to see Hollywood Boulevard and go back and talk about it with friends and neighbors around the world instead of leaving like they do today, a little disappointed.”

The homeless crisis in Los Angeles has shocked in recent years — an issue Mayor Karen Bass committed to addressing as soon as she took office last year.

The number of homeless people in LA has more than doubled in the past decade.

There was a 9 percent increase in homelessness in Los Angeles County between 2022 and 2023, with the unmarried population now totaling 75,518 people, according to the latest data from the Lahsa.

The city of Los Angeles saw an estimated 10 percent increase to a total of 46,260 residents.

Princess Anne’s warning not to slim the Royal Family down further was ‘right’ and with the ‘big three’ royals now off work the ‘desertion’ of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has put The Firm ‘in trouble’, royal experts told MailOnline today.

The Princess of Wales is in hospital after an abdominal operation, Prince William has taken time off to care for his family and King Charles has revealed he needs a procedure on his enlarged prostate next week.

Experts have pointed to Princess Anne’s words from last May, where she told a Canadian broadcaster: ‘I think that “slimmed down” was said in a day when there were a few more people to make that seem like a justifiable comment’, adding: ‘It doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing.’

Royal biographer Phil Dampier has said that the absence of Harry, Meghan and Prince Andrew means ‘the slimmed down monarchy looks a bit too slim’. 

He said that it ‘must raise the question of whether some minor royal jobs could be carried out by others like Princess Beatrice or Eugenie’. There have also been calls for Zara and Mike Tindall to do more.

But royal expert and investigative journalist Tom Bower says despite Kate and Charles’ health problems, the King must stay the course and not reverse the trend by relying on minor royals such as the Duke of York’s children.

Mr Dampier said: ‘Princess Anne said in an interview last year that she thought the monarchy was already slimmed down enough and she’s been proved right.

‘The events of this week also put into sharp focus how much the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to leave has rocked the monarchy when originally they promised so much.

‘If Harry and Meghan hadn’t left for California and Prince Andrew hadn’t ruined his life by getting involved with sleaze, there wouldn’t be a problem. But without them the Firm is in trouble when the unexpected happens’.

He added: ‘You do wonder if in quiet moments Harry feels some pangs of guilt for deserting his family and the institution, but so far he has not shown any public signs of regret.

‘With Kate in hospital being looked after by William and the King going in next week, we are down to The Queen, Princess Anne and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh as full time working royals. Two of them are over seventy and the ancient institution looks painfully thin on the ground’.

Tom Bower also believes the health problems at the top of the Royal Family shines a spotlight on Harry and Meghan, but says it will soon be business as usual.

He said: ‘Our hearts go out to the King and Princess of Wales. Their absence from our daily lives will make us appreciate them and the monarchy even more. However, this is not the moment to reverse the trend to slim down the monarchy.

‘Any suggestion that Beatrice and Eugenie should step in should be firmly quashed. Neither has done anything to deserve our respect. Harry had a marvellous opportunity to serve his country but disloyally not only deserted us but betrayed his countrymen and his family.

‘In a few weeks it will be back to “business as usual” and we will appreciate all the more how lucky we are to have the Royal Family to represent the best of British values’.

The Princess of Wales has spent a second night in hospital after major abdominal surgery as William, her parents and siblings cleared their diaries to support her recovery and care for George, Charlotte and Louis.

Kate is said to be ‘doing well’ as she recovers following the procedure at the London Clinic in Marylebone revealed on the same day King Charles announced he was taking a short break for treatment for an enlarged prostate.

With Prince William also taking leave to care for his wife and children, the so-called ‘big three’ royals will be away from duties over the coming weeks with experts saying that with Harry and Meghan in the US, and Andrew in the cold, there is only Princess Anne and her brother Prince Edward to call on.

Kate is not expected to return to public events until after Easter, and her husband will combine being by his wife’s and children’s side throughout.

Any royal tours William and Kate had in the diary for the coming months will also no longer take place amid speculation they would visit Italy together in March. 

Kate’s parents Carole and Michael Middleton and sibling Pippa Matthews and James Middleton are already rallying round and help support her recovery at her home in Windsor, which is close to their own homes.

The Royal Family’s ‘big three’ are out of action because Buckingham Palace also revealed yesterday that  King Charles III will attend hospital next week to be treated with a ‘corrective procedure’ for an enlarged prostate.

The two health updates on senior royals came within 90 minutes of each other, with Kensington Palace coming first at 2pm then Buckingham Palace followed at 3.30pm.

She was not rushed for hospital and her condition was not something that developed over the weekend, according to reports. 

The Prince will also postpone a number of engagements as he supports his family, and will not undertake official duties while his wife is in hospital.

He will also do no official duties during the immediate period after Kate’s return home. Royal aides will provide a revised schedule for William in due course.

It is unclear what the exact nature of the surgery, with The Palace unwilling to reveal any details in respect of Kate’s ‘medical privacy’. However it did not rule out the prospect that she may choose to speak publicly about it herself in the future.

Sun GP Dr Zoe Williams told The Sun: ‘This might be something that has been bothering her for her whole life which she has not got round to resolving, or an issue that has come to light more recently.

‘Two weeks in hospital is longer than we would normally expect, but she doesn’t have a normal life. She’s the future queen so the doctors will be erring on the side of caution.

‘We all hope it is something minor and the surgery is straightforward, but precaution is wise. With anything medical you can never be completely certain how things will go.

‘The most important thing is that she gets enough recovery time and it’s not too stressful for her and her family.’

Dr Deborah Lee, from Dr Fox Online Pharmacy, told The Express: ‘For abdominal surgery, most people stay in the hospital for four to seven days. After laparoscopic surgery [a type of keyhole surgery], this is reduced to two to four days.

‘It very much depends on what exactly has been done. If a patient needs to go to ITU, it’s likely their hospital stay would be considerably longer.

‘It can take two months or more for the patient to feel comfortable and be able to move around normally afterwards.’

Neither William nor Kate will travel internationally over the coming months.

William and Kate were said to have been planning a high-profile visit to Rome this spring as part of a European charm offensive, but this is now in doubt. Another scheduled foreign military engagement could be affected. 

Kate will almost certainly be forced to miss a number of high-profile events she might otherwise been expected to attend. 

She and William have regularly turned up for the Baftas, the biggest night in British cinema, held in central London this month, but this would be too soon for the recovering princess. 

She is also likely to miss out on a long-standing royal tradition in March – handing out shamrocks to the Irish Guards on St Patrick’s Day in her role as the regiment’s honorary colonel. 

The annual Commonwealth Day Service, also held in March, is likely to have to go ahead without her. The princess, patron of English rugby, is also unlikely to be well enough to attend the Guinness Six Nations, which kicks off next month. 

The Princess marked her birthday just over a week ago, with the monarchy’s official social media accounts sharing a new behind-the-scenes photo of the princess at the King’s coronation.

Kate usually enjoys good health but was previously admitted to hospital while pregnant after suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum – severe morning sickness.

A palace spokesman said: ‘Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales was admitted to The London Clinic for planned abdominal surgery.

‘The surgery was successful and it is expected that she will remain in hospital for ten to fourteen days, before returning home to continue her recovery. Based on the current medical advice, she is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.

‘The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate. She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.

‘Kensington Palace will, therefore, only provide updates on Her Royal Highness’ progress when there is significant new information to share.

‘The Princess of Wales wishes to apologise to all those concerned for the fact that she has to postpone her upcoming engagements. 

‘She looks forward to reinstating as many as possible, as soon as possible.’

Royal expert Phil Dampier said: ‘Wishing the Princess of Wales a speedy recovery after abdominal surgery. We don’t know the details but clearly this was serious as she will be in hospital for a fortnight and needs up to three months to recover.’

And the Queen’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter said on X: ‘I am sure I speak for everyone in wishing HRH a speedy recovery.’

By Marta Jary for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 08:34 EST, January 6, 2024 | Updated: 08:51 EST, January 6, 2024