Celebrity
Who’s to blame if Britney Spears has been ‘devoured’ by celebrity?
All the questions around Britney Spears can be condensed into this one: who should we blame? For a long time,…
The bogus business of stigma-busting
Our society is bristling with social stigmas, we’re told, even in the progressive West, even in London. Life is so…
The problem with ‘role models’
Who needs role models anyway?
Why I’m glad to see the back of Call My Agent!
For the past few weeks I have been binge-watching the Netflix series Call My Agent! (or Dix pour cent, as…
Alexandra Shulman’s unlikely career in fashion journalism should have made a Hollywood movie
Alexandra Shulman says that she had ‘no desire to write an autobiography’ — so instead she has written about her…
Lautrec often made the stars in his posters look appalling – but they kept coming back
You don’t need to be much of a psychologist to understand the trajectory of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Born to aristocratic…
Joan Collins: The celebrity trend I just can’t stand
Not only are today’s young girls having to work hard on their abs, butts and glutes, now the likes of…
Lizzie Bennet is catapulted to America
Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Eligible is a page-turning romantic comedy which is very funny and entirely ridiculous: each of the short…
‘Wanna come to Prince’s house?’
The untold story
The new Wheeler’s is the worst thing Marco Pierre White has ever done
Wheeler’s is such a dreadful restaurant that I wonder if Marco Pierre White even knows his name is on it.…
Dear Mary: my niece hasn’t returned the small sum I lent her
Q. My niece, who came to stay with me in the country for the weekend, arrived without cash and asked…
Le Caprice is trying to bring back the 1980s (unsuccessfully)
Le Caprice is a monochrome patch of the 1980s behind the Ritz Hotel, in the part of St James’s that…
Barry Humphries’s diary: My war with ‘Wow!’
I’m counting ‘Wows!’ Suddenly everyone is using this irritating expletive expressing incredulity, amazement and nothing at all. I’ve heard it…
John Lennon’s desert island luxury
Beatlebone is an account of a journey, a psychedelic odyssey, its protagonist — at times its narrator — John Lennon,…
Breast-feeding isn't always best
New mothers who can’t keep to the breast-feeding orthodoxy face needless misery and shame
Rachel Johnson’s diary: Why I told my book party I was coming out as a lesbian
My husband says I only write books in order to have a launch party. Not so. I also write books…
Dear Mary: My husband has shaved his head for a newspaper feature
Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…
The new Ivy doesn’t have the old magic (if there ever was any)
The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is…
By, with, of and for Kim Kardashian — keeping up with Kulture
The almond eyes that rise towards their outer edges. The cheekbones that curve down to the corners of those upholstered…
Whose hair are you buying?
British people buy £43 million worth of human hair a year. So who’s selling?
‘About time too!’: Joan Collins curtseys to Prince Charles
The day of my investiture at Buckingham Palace dawned bringing freezing rain and fierce winds, which lashed at the windows…
David Starkey’s diary: Why don’t we celebrate the triumphs of private dentistry?
To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I…
My moment of mortification with Saint Joan Collins
My time with Joan Collins was wonderful – except for one mortifying moment
Dear Mary solves problems for Jim Broadbent, N.M. Gwynne, Jesse Norman and others
Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her…
The horrors of the ‘Upskirt Decade’
Lynn Barber 25 November 2023 9:00 am
The century began as a monstrous time to be famous and female – epitomised by the Tulsa judge who, in 2006, seemed to rule that no woman had a right to privacy in public