MARY Portas rose to fame as the Queen of Shops thanks to her documentaries and best-selling books – and of course her iconic Lego-esque red bob.

But the 63-year-old, who has raised £30million for Save the Children, debuted a new look on Wednesday after being appointed OBE for services to retail, broadcasting and charities.

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Fans likely did a double take after seeing her accept the honor at Windsor Castle, with the television personality embracing her natural gray hair in a longer cut.

After appearing on Channel 4’s Richard & Judy chat show in 2005, Mary has appeared regularly on primetime television and secured lucrative deals through books, TV and private engagements.

She ran four series on the BBC between 2007 and 2010, before jumping to Channel 4 with Mary Portas: Secret Shopper, which followed a similar format.

Most of her TV work sees Mary visiting both independent shops and major chains in an attempt to improve their fortunes with her expert advice.

She rose to prominence for her expertise in visual merchandising and retail strategy, which manifested during her television career.

But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for the Watford-born presenter.

In 2019, she split from her fashion consultant wife, Melanie Rickey, describing the divorce as “completely awful” in an interview. The guard.

“I got divorced, I had to sell my childhood home, I had to reset my family with this young son, find another home and figure out how things were going to work,” she candidly shared.

After 17 years together, the couple were forced to sell their £5 million home in London’s posh Primrose Hill and move into separate houses nearby.

At the same time as her marriage broke down, lockdown hit and cost Mary’s consultancy business “hundreds of thousands” of pounds.

Mary ditched the bob during the Covid-19 pandemic after discovering she couldn’t go to the hairdresser to maintain her electric color during lockdown.

For a long time, my red bob was ‘me’. When I was Queen of Shops, that haircut defined me

Maria Portas

“My red bob was ‘me’ for a long time,” she shared on Instagram in May last year.

“When I was Queen of Shops, that haircut defined me.

“But then came Covid, and no visits to the hairdresser, and the bob grew out and the color faded.

“At first I panicked a bit; who was I without the bob?

“But then I realized that this was actually an opportunity for the outside of me to change to reflect what was happening inside.

“When my hair started to change in the first dark days of Covid, I had written Work Like A Woman, I started writing Rebuild and I had changed so much of my personal mindset.

“And so I embraced my new look.”

She urged others to “play, experiment, try new things and have joy” as they grow older.

“Find the look on the outside that matches the richness of all the layers on the inside,” she said.

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Mary rose to fame in 2007 with the start of the TV program Mary Queen of Shops, in which she helped failing high streets.

She was then appointed by then Prime Minister David Cameron to lead an independent inquiry into the future of the high street in 2011.

Mary’s brother Lawrence Newton provided the sperm to conceive Horatio with Melanie’s egg through IVF.

“Honestly, I don’t know which kid is the most high-maintenance!” Mary told the Daily Mail in 2015, adding that she actually finds taking care of her older children more challenging than her youngest.

‘The [then] The 19-year-old is back from her gap year and will be heading to college this fall. I spend so much time providing emotional and loving guidance, it is much more emotionally draining than the three year old!’

Mary also explained her close relationship with her brother Lawrence, who she previously revealed in 2015 fathered her child with Melanie.

‘When you experience the death of a parent, you stick together like glue. So we were always close,” she explained.

“We’re family, that’s it… I’m a mother, I’m a businesswoman, I have kids, I have family, I happen to live with another woman and she had a child who happens to be my brother’s. The more I can normalize that, the better the world will be.”

‘It is much more emotionally difficult to deal with daughters. “I was very happy to have another son,” she admitted.

‘I don’t want to offend my daughter, who I love, but they are all for it. It’s all those emotions that young girls go through.

“From the acceptance of their friends to the way they look, there’s a huge amount of pressure on them that boys don’t have.”

But the unconventional circumstances of Horatio’s conception have their origins long before all this. They are set in the tragic childhood in which Portas was effectively orphaned at the age of 16 – and became a surrogate mother for Lawrence, now the surrogate mother of her child.

When she and her brother first carried the baby into the west London sunshine, outside St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, they could have been forgiven for thinking about this extraordinary life cycle. Or as Portas puts it: ‘I know now that it could only have been Lawrence who was Horatio’s father.’

To fully understand these words, it is necessary to turn back the clock forty years, to the time when the multi-millionaire retail and branding consultant was a feisty sixteen-year-old who dreamed of becoming a famous actress and hoped to take up a career . a place at RADA.

That all changed suddenly and irrevocably when her mother, also named Mary, died of meningitis in 1977.

While Portas’ three older siblings were already on the verge of leaving the family’s dilapidated semi-detached house in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, her grief-stricken father found solace in another woman. Portas had to take care of 14-year-old Lawrence. washes his clothes and feeds him, while she struggles to come to terms with her own broken heart.

She may have achieved celebrity status through her TV series Mary, Queen Of Shops, not to mention her role as an adviser to David Cameron on the future of the High Street, but Portas’s beginnings were far more humble than her rich life today would suggest.

Her parents were immigrants from Northern Ireland; her red-haired, green-eyed mother, Mary Flynn, was a laundress and her father, Sam Newton, was a bus conductor. Both were fiercely ambitious and encouraged their five children to study hard in their Catholic schools.

While Sam later became a factory manager for Brooke Bond, his wife devoted herself to raising her children, Michael, Patricia, Joe, Mary and Lawrence.

The sudden loss of their mother – wrongly diagnosed with menopausal depression even as she was dying – was compounded by the reaction of their father who, after throwing himself over their mother’s body sobbing, declared that there was nothing left to live for. .

However, he quickly replaced his wife with another after meeting office worker Rebecca at a social club for widows and widowers.

He then sold the family home despite the fact that young Mary, who had barely left school, and Lawrence, who was still a student, were still living there. Both became homeless and Mary developed a fierce independence and self-sufficiency that is still so evident today.

Everything in the house was sold or simply disappeared. She has no photos to commemorate her mother, only a cookbook and a statue of a saint.

Despite Lawrence’s love of music, he was actually instructed by his father to join the police force, largely because he would be given accommodation at the training school in Hendon.

But despite her own ordeal, the ever-capable Portas was never far from her younger brother’s side. She quit her course at RADA because she couldn’t cope financially or emotionally, and devoted herself to caring for them both.

In fact, she sacrificed her dreams of becoming an actress to become Lawrence’s surrogate mother, not knowing that one day he would step in and thank her in the most poignant way imaginable, by becoming a surrogate mother for her to become a child after deciding he hadn’t. I don’t want any from himself.

“We are so close,” she told The Times this weekend. “Our bond will never change, will never change.”

Meanwhile, Portas grew up having unequivocally heterosexual relationships and romantic feelings for men she met, eventually marrying chemical engineer Graham Portas after meeting him in a wine bar.

By then, she had achieved significant career success. After attending Watford College Of Art, Portas began her career in retail in the early 1980s with a Saturday job at John Lewis before moving to Harrods where she gained her first experience in window display design.

She moved to Topshop before being poached by London department store Harvey Nichols, where her exceptionally creative window displays made her the talk of London. At the age of thirty she was a board member.

For a while, it seemed that her professional success was accompanied by domestic happiness. Her son Mylo, now 21, was born in 1994. Her daughter Verity, now 19, almost two years later.

But slowly the relationship began to fall apart and the couple divorced in 2003, very amicably, after 13 years of marriage. She has since described those years as “some of the best years of my life… we just grew apart, and that happens.”

It wasn’t long after that Portas met Melanie Rickey, a fashion magazine editor, at a Royal College Of Art dinner, and the pair fell for each other almost immediately.

Until that point, Portas had never considered a relationship with a woman – “I certainly wasn’t a repressed lesbian,” she later reflected – and insists her love for Rickey took her by surprise, adding: “She gives the world complete love . and it’s the most refreshing, beautiful thing there is.’

Rickey also had not come out as gay before meeting Portas. But their relationship soon became both public and serious, making them Britain’s most high-profile lesbian couple.

The couple had a civil ceremony in 2010 and began IVF the following year, with Melanie carrying the child as she was the younger woman.

They were among the first same-sex couples to convert that partnership into marriage on December 9 last year, when Portas took Melanie out for dinner and then surprised her by going to the Westminster Register Office at midnight, where their family and Horatio were waiting for them.

Today they share a £5 million home in London’s Primrose Hill with Portas’ eldest children, Mylo and Verity. Portas’ ex-husband, the first person she told about Melanie, is a regular at the dinner. Melanie also spoke this week about the unusual circumstances surrounding Horatio’s birth and emphasized that she had no qualms about Portas making it public.

“Gay people get married and have children, so I don’t think there’s any downside to sharing the information,” she told the Observer.

“We’re simply sharing something that feels very normal to us as a family, and if it inspires people or makes them think differently – or even if it changes their perception of ‘normal’ – then that can only be a positive thing.”

But while Horatio’s legal mother is Britain’s leading retail and branding expert, his biological father is a bit quieter.

Despite embarking on a career as a police officer, he has recently worked as a bar manager for his eldest brother, successful entrepreneur Michael Newton.

Indeed, Portas and her siblings remain close and very protective of each other.

While Lawrence worked for his eldest brother, he lived for several years with another brother, Joe, in North London.

For the past three months, he has been living with Portas, Melanie and their children in her beautiful London home, where toddler Horatio takes turns addressing each other as Mom, Mom and Dad Lawrence.

But Lawrence is about to emigrate to Bermuda to start a new life with his girlfriend.

Portas, who says she watched her brother struggle for years after their mother’s death, says that as Lawrence coped by taking control and trying to micro-manage everything, “walked away” and “became the hedonist later in her life.

And the anger she felt as a child only grew as her own children grew up. This week, she recalled, “I look at these two kids and think, ‘Jesus! That was me coming home to do all the cooking. That’s you, Laurens. This is simply criminal.’ And I mourned this 14-year-old boy – and I guess I mourned the 16-year-old girl that I was.

‘I had no life for five years. It was a gray world, a very gray world.’

But the anger she once felt toward her father, who died suddenly of a heart attack the same year he remarried and left everything to his second wife, has been soothed thanks to years of therapy, not to mention the birth of Horatio.

Referring to her book, she said: ‘With all the trauma in it, this is a beautiful, happy little world.’

In an extract from her autobiography Shop Girl, published this week in The Times, she uses the present tense as she recalls the existence she and Lawrence built together as teenagers home alone without an adult to guide them.

“Together we have created our own way of being,” she writes. She might as well be describing the present. For while the choices she has made may seem unconventional, it seems clear that after years of private pain, Portas fought her own way to a happy ending that also involved the beloved younger brother she always promised to care for .

Table tennis star Achanta Sharath Kamal was India’s flag bearer at the closing ceremony of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022.

New Delhi: Veteran table tennis player and reigning CWG champion Sharath Kamal will be India’s flag-bearer at the 2024 Paris Olympics, while legendary boxer MC Mary Kom was appointed chef de mission of the country’s contingent on Thursday. The 41-year-old table tennis player symbolizes “the unity and spirit of our contingent as they compete on the Olympic stage,” the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) said in a statement while making the announcement.

“It was an incredible three weeks. From not even being assured of an Olympic spot to playing like I did last week in Singapore, rising 54 places in the rankings to the title of India’s flag bearer,” Kamal told PTI. “It is the greatest honor and a fairytale story, as it will be my fifth and last Olympic Games. Moreover, not many TT players worldwide have received that honor. I just got a call from the IOA and I couldn’t believe it.”

Kamal was the flag bearer for India at the closing ceremony of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022. Recently, the Indian men’s and women’s teams had qualified for the team events of the Olympic Games for the first time based on their rankings. Six-time world champion Mary Kom, bronze medalist at the 2012 London Olympics, will be assisted by luger Shiva Keshavan, who has been appointed deputy chef de mission.

“Mary Kom’s unparalleled dedication to sport and inspiring journey make her a natural choice to guide and guide our athletes at the Olympic Games,” the IOA said. “Keshavan, a former Olympian in luge, brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to support the team’s management and coordination efforts.”

Olympic bronze medalist in rifle shooting Gagan Narang will oversee India’s operations at the shooting range, which is very far away from the main locations. India will send its largest ever shooting contingent to Paris, with 19 quota already in hand.

“His (Narang’s) meticulous approach and understanding of athletes’ needs will ensure an enabling environment for our shooters,” the statement said. “These appointments represent a blend of experience, expertise and leadership that will contribute significantly to the success of our athletes on the world stage,” the statement said.

Commenting on the appointments, IOA President PT Usha said: “We are delighted to have such a distinguished and capable team of officials leading our contingent for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Their expertise, dedication and passion for sports will undoubtedly inspire our athletes to be the best they can be and make the nation proud.”

By Codie Bullen for Mailonline

Published: 12:46 EDT, March 14, 2024 | Updated: 12:48 EDT, March 14, 2024

Shane MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke shared on Instagram on Wednesday how an ice bath helped her stop ‘crying like crazy’ and feeling ‘very depressed’.

Her husband, the frontman of The Pogues, died in November at the age of 65 after a battle with viral encephalitis.

Victoria wrote: ‘People have been talking to me for years about how great ice baths are, especially when you do the @iceman_hof breathing.

“The other day in Tulsa I had a really rough day, crying like crazy and feeling really depressed.

“I happened to see that you could book an ice bath with @manifestation.dude Derek and I thought I might as well give it a try.”

She continued: ‘Before we got on the ice, we did some stretching and then about 20 minutes of Wim Hof ​​breathing and I started to feel more alive, more centered and calm.

‘I was scared to get into the ice bath, but I thought I could do it for 30 seconds! But amazingly, I lasted 3 minutes. And I felt so completely present and I wasn’t thinking about the past or the future, it was just completely zen!

“Many people have said that getting into our bodies is the antidote to nostalgia and wishing things were different. Like in The Power of Now by @eckharttolle, you discover that you feel completely different when you get out of your head!!!

‘I will definitely do this again and always come back to the breath. Really happy with this breakthrough! Thank you @manifestatie.dude and @iceman_hof! ‘

The post comes after she admitted she was a “blubbering mess” ahead of Valentine’s Day this year.

Victoria shared it with X, formerly known as Twitter an emotional tribute to the star who sings Victoria’s name and hums along to his own tune.

She wrote: “I feel like an absolute blubbering wreck today and it’s not even Valentine’s Day yet!”

In the 52-second clip, Shane sat on a green armchair with a crucifix around his neck and a black polo shirt.

Shane started the video with a question: “Who’s the best?” Before screaming Victoria’s name over and over again.

A smile appeared on his face as he continued to belt out his tunes, nodding along to his wholesome melody.

The clip ends with the rocker singing her name before declaring, “That’s what the streets sang in 1969.”

Since the musician’s death, Victoria has opened up to fans and shared exclusive insights into the couple’s relationship.

In January, the Irish journalist revealed that she had received messages from the late singer since his tragic death.

Victoria took to Instagram to share an emotional tribute, revealing she had received ‘nudges’ from her late husband after being unable to pick up a guitar since his death.

Victoria shared a photo of Shane with the instrument and wrote: ‘I haven’t played guitar since @shanemacgowanofficial died but last night while trying to watch TV I kept getting nudges from him to open his desk drawer.

“I kept trying to ignore the nudges and I tried to keep watching TV, but something wouldn’t let me and I had to get up and open the drawer.

“There was a pick in the drawer, so I picked it up and then I picked up the guitar and played a few chords.”

‘And it really felt like an energy came through that formed a tune!!!

‘Who knows what we on the other side are capable of? I do know that it felt really good to play the guitar!’

Just a fortnight earlier, on Christmas Day, she paid a heartfelt tribute to the singer on what would have been his 66th birthday.

The journalist took to Instagram to share a sweet photo of the couple and said the festive period had been much harder than she expected.

Victoria, who had been in a relationship with Shane since she was 16, captioned the post: “Today is really hard, much harder than I expected. I just can’t stop crying and I want to be with him so bad it physically hurts.

“I don’t know how people get through this, but I know they do and people feel joy even after losing their person.

“Shane always said that even though he was born on Christmas Day, he was much more focused on Jesus’ birthday and he felt that was the most important thing about Christmas, so I’m asking Jesus and the angels to help me today.”

Victoria also broke her silence on Wham!’s Last Christmas, beating The Pogues’ 1987 hit The Fairytale of New York to Christmas number one, despite a gathering of fans.

She took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and wrote: ‘I love Wham!!! We loved George.

Ewan McGregor And Mary Elizabeth Winstead brought their on-screen romance to the real world after working together on FX’s Fargo.

The pair appeared in season 3 of the anthology crime drama, which debuted in April 2017. McGregor played twins Emmit Stussy and Ray Stussy, while Winstead played Nikki Swango, Ray’s fiancée.

A month after her Fargo debut, Winstead announced via social media that she was splitting from her husband Riley Stearnswhom she married in 2010.

Winstead and McGregor sparked romance speculation in October 2017 when they were spotted on a PDA-filled date in London. The outing raised eyebrows because McGregor was still married Eva Mavrakiswith whom he shares four children.

However, in January 2018, McGregor filed for divorce from Mavrakis, listing May 2017 as the date of the couple’s separation. The procedure was completed in August 2020.

McGregor and Winstead kept their romance somewhat under the radar before welcoming their son Laurie in the summer of 2021. The following year they tied the knot.

Scroll down to see more of McGregor and Winstead’s romance:

Maria Steenburgen just gave a sartorial nod to her 1981 Oscar win.

The 71-year-old actress attended the Academy Awards on Sunday, March 10, wearing a strapless black floor-length dress by Tom Ford with a thigh-high slit and gold buckle detailing down the front.

During the presentation of the award for Best Supporting Actress (which was won by Da’Vine Joy Randolph), Steenburgen added a black velvet jacket on top – the same velvet jacket she wore when she won Best Supporting Actress in 1981 for her role in Melvin and Howard.

The mid-length jacket had long sleeves and yellow floral embroidery throughout.

Steenburgen presented Randolph, 37, with her award next to it Lupita Nyong’o, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rita Moreno And Regina Kingall of whom have previously won the prestigious award.

Steenburgen accessorized her red carpet look with a small beaded bag and bracelets. She wore her hair straightened and wore black eyeliner, smokey eyeshadow and pink lipstick for the occasion.

Before he went to the ceremony, Steenburgen said Etalk that this was the first time she presented an award at the Oscars.

“I never presented because the year after I won I had a little baby and I was working in Europe and I couldn’t leave her and fly all the way back so I never did,” Steenburgen explained, adding admits: “It just feels sweet. I probably appreciate it even more now than then.”

Like Steenburgen, Nyong’o, 41, also put a lot of effort into her Oscars dress. Eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the baby blue Armani Privé dress Nyong’o wore to Sunday’s ceremony was strikingly similar to the Prada dress she wore to the 2014 Oscars, where she won Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12 years slave.

Nyong’o’s stylist, Micaela Erlanger, went to Instagram that same day to reveal how the 2014 look “changed the course of my career.”

“It was a journey,” Erlanger continued. “I knew from the start that our dress was very special in its simplicity, in its elegance, with the soft blue color and delicate beading. But I couldn’t even imagine it would have the impact it did.”

Now that the weather is warming up, we can finally ditch the heavy winter coats and wear our spring coats.

However, if you’re still looking for that perfect jacket that’s not too thick but not too thin, your best bet is to race to nearby Asda, where fashionistas have spotted just the right fit.

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Yes, that’s right – according to style enthusiasts, the popular supermarket has launched ‘a beautiful quilted jacket’ – and it costs less than €30.

The showstopper of a jacket is a must if, like the Fabulous team, you love colorful prints and want to take your outfits to the next level with bold and eye-catching patterns.

The quilted jacket, which does not appear to be available online yet, has round neck details and is the perfect way to welcome spring due to its colorful design.

Made from different patterns, such as a light baby pink patch with dainty flowers and a black patch with contrasting blue flowers, the jacket has already become all the rage on TikTok.

One shopper, Jemma Heathfield, urged fellow fashionistas not to lose any sleep over the find – which costs £28 – saying: ”Run to Asda, girls!”

To share a video of the bargain find on her pageJemma also couldn’t stop raving about the jacket, which she described as ”gorgeous”.

Seeing the beautiful patterns, dozens of fashion fans flocked to the comments, with many tagging their friends and family to let them know about the news.

One said: ”This is definitely not Asda.”

Another said: ”So annoying, I absolutely love this and it’s not online, they’ve got rid of my local Asda Living!”

A third said where they spotted the jacket: “It’s in the store at Asda Barnsley girls.”

“I really want this so bad,” exclaimed one style enthusiast.

While many seemed totally obsessed with the garment, not everyone rushed to the nearest branch as they insisted the jacket was made for grandmas.

“I think my grandma would love this,” one social media user chuckled.

“I made something similar at Fashion Tech in fifth year of high school,” said another aggrieved style fanatic.

“Mary Berry core,” someone else thought.

”You’re all paying £28 to look like your grandmother’s sewing pile has thrown up on you?” one person was baffled.

Need more convincing to plan a trip to the store this weekend? How about a FREE meal and a free drink – and no, there’s no catch.

Asda is now offering all its customers a free bowl of savory porridge and a hot drink every day until March 20.

The deal, which is available from 8am to 12pm, is available in all 205 Asda cafes – and the best part is that everyone can get their hands on the goodies.

There are no eligibility criteria or minimum spend; you just have to ask for the offer at the counter.

Shoppers can find their nearest branch using the store locator on Asda’s website, and it takes just a few seconds.

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Critics are impressed by one of the raunchiest royal dramas to date: about a 17th-century countess who molded her son to seduce King James I.

Sky’s Mary & George, which aired this week, is inspired by the scandalous true story of Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore), who taught her beautiful and charismatic son, George (Nicholas Galitzine), to become King James VI of Scotland and I of England. seduce (Tony Curran) and become his all-powerful lover.

Through extravagant scheming, the couple rose from humble beginnings to become the wealthiest, most prominent and influential players the English court had ever seen, and the king’s most trusted advisors.

Fans have praised the raunchy bonk-buster for its mix of “costume, plotting and sex,” while critics called it “ridiculous fun” and a “royal romp of sex and scheming.”

The show also looks at early 18th century England, and its place on the world stage, threatened by a Spanish invasion and rioters taking to the streets to denounce the king.

Willing to stop at nothing and armed with her ruthless political steel, Mary married her way up the ranks, bribed politicians, colluded with criminals and clawed her way into the heart of the establishment, making it her own.

And the daring historical psychodrama about a treacherous mother and son who plotted, seduced and murdered to conquer the court of England and the king’s bedside became an instant hit.

The guard praised it as “magnificent” and drew attention to: “plum poisonings, lesbian affairs, murders, orgies – and a family so monstrous they make the Borgias look like the Waltons”

In a five-star review, they added: ‘Moore is brilliant – cold, smart and always bubbly – and seems to be having the time of her life.’

The times gave the show four stars and compared the film to 2018’s The Favorite, which featured “colorful swearing, moments of off-center humor and go-go romps”.

“The more sexually fluid the better,” the reviewer wrote.

‘Here, the candlelit links are explicitly ‘bums-out’ (and everything else ‘off’), while looking like a work of art. In episode three, a generously gay menage-a-six (or ‘concert of the flesh’) seems as if a previously censored Caravaggio painting had come to life’.

Mary is described as a “mother from hell and social climber extraordinaire.”

Society bible Tatler also compared the show to the Favourite.

“Based on episode one, it’s a perfect gender-swapped version of that particular story. As an exploration of the use of sexuality as power within the realms of the British nobility, Mary & George is quick and deliciously dry,” they wrote.

In the meantime, The Irish Times called it ‘dimly lit, misanthropic and hung with exposed flesh’.

‘There is no arguing about the quantity: there is a bottomless supply of bonking and backstabbing’.

The Telegraph said George, played by Nicholas Galitzine, looked like he had ‘stepped straight off a catwalk’

“You’re not looking at his acting, you’re just staring at his cheekbones.” They wrote.

The Daily Mail wrote: ‘This bawdy, exuberant, 17th-century costume drama Mary & George (Sky Atlantic) follows the boy as he rises to claim a dukedom, as second sons sometimes do. Serials from this era follow two patterns: the literary or the salacious, Wolf Hall or The Tudors.

“This definitely falls into the latter camp and if you like raunchy, salacious and sweary history, it’s a lot of fun.”

Mary & George is produced by Hera Pictures in association with Sky Studios and is now streaming on Sky Atlantic and NOW.

The series is written by DC Moore (Killing Eve, Temple), inspired by the non-fiction book The King’s Assassin by Benjamin Woolley.