‘I threw it in the bin with everything else he gave me': the mix tapes that defined our lives
Side A of the tape (entitled 'Barry Manilow Live!') has bands we'd bonded over, such as Kenickie and These Animal Men, two of our first London gigs together. Blur's Popscene is included because we were sweaty regulars at the club night of that name at LA2 in Charing Cross Road. The other one ('David Hasselhoff B-sides') includes Gallon Drunk, the Byrds and Stereolab, all a bit more mature, all nudges into new directions. Everything on the inlay card is in caps and even Pat's handwriting was cool. I hero-worshipped him well beyond our university years and he shaped my taste in films and fashion as much as music. When we were young he could be brutally, hilariously scathing about bands he despised; later, that energy would be spent more on championing than dissing. It's years since I owned a cassette player but, looking at the tape now, I'd forgotten it ends with a 'secret bonus track!' I'm guessing it's a shared guilty pleasure (Carter USM?) and can't wait to find out. It'll be another joke from not just a cool and funny friend but an all-round unfaltering one. Chris Wiegand
Nobody had ever made me a mix tape (or a CD playlist as it would have more likely been, since I grew up in the 00s) until my 19th birthday, and even then it wasn't a proper one. Having failed to track down a blank CD in Madrid, where we were both working as au pairs, a girl from Colorado I wasn't exactly dating but who was definitely more than just a friend wrote me a list of songs on a page pulled out of a notepad. I remember reading it for the first time, with its loopy handwriting, doodles, and songs chosen just for me, and thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world.
Like most 19-year-olds, I was confused and anxious about so many things, but she brought so much kindness and fun into my life. We were the same age, and I can't imagine that she had everything figured out herself, but she seemed to know more than me about most things, music included, and it was exciting to take a step into her world. I must have lost the scrap of paper at some point over the last decade, and now I can't recall a single song that was on there. I wish I did, and I wish I had a way of contacting that girl from Colorado – I still owe her a 'mix tape' in return. Lucy Knight
I find it easily in a bag in the attic – it has a sticker of a cat smoking a spliff, cut around the spools: a remnant of the 90s ska band Hepcat. The one mix tape I would never bin. Chris gave it to me in late 1999. He was 17 and playing gigs at venues like the Astoria. I was 16 and couldn't go to most of the gigs at venues like the Astoria because it was a school night.
It's not what you'd call your classic heart-on-sleeve emo mix. It's full of hardcore and punk anthems by bands such as Operation Ivy, Madball, Good Riddance and, randomly, multiple tracks by New Bomb Turks (he must have just bought their album at Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus, where he, then later we, would go on pilgrimages to find all the newest albums).
There are also, seemingly, no songs on side B. I re-listen to the tape now on my grandpa's old cassette deck, and have to endure almost 45 minutes of static to get back to the start – I simply cannot risk pressing fast forward in case the whole precious thing gets chewed up. Then, all of a sudden, the radio-recorded dolphin tones of Mariah Carey emerge from the static singing Heartbreaker, a track he knew I loved more than any punk, then cuts off before Jay-Z's verse. Worth the 43 minutes of white noise, truly.
But the start of side A, the pièce de résistance – and surely the real reason he wanted me to have the tape – was so I could hear his own band. Two tunes, recorded live with laughably terrible sound levels but faultless drumming by Chris. Two tunes my teenage self listened to over and over.
Twenty-five years on, this is the only version of those songs that remains. I absolutely love that they are unShazamable, that they exist solely on this crinkly tape that is one listen away from ruination. I still love those tunes – just as I love his new band. Our two children do, too. Kate Abbott
We didn't call them mix tapes back in the day. Well, I didn't. Wasn't cool enough. They were just tapes with songs on. The first life-changing one was sent to me by a friend Steve and it was just the most brilliant mix of all the punk songs I didn't know – the Damned, the Buzzcocks, the Ramones, the Pistols, of course, and best of all the Vibrators with Baby Baby. It was – and is – amazing. Lush, romantic, as much full of yearning as feedback, and super loud. Imagine Phil Spector turned punk and you've got Baby Baby.
It didn't make me a punk (still too uncool), but it did make me want to dye my hair black (pointless, as it already was), spike it up with sugar, and stick a red arrow through my ear. Which I did a bit later.
The last mix tape I made, in December 2023, was very much a modern mix tape. Improvised on the night, and on YouTube. Mum was dying and I spent the night by her bedside with my laptop. I just played song after song that I loved for her, unsure whether she could hear. I introduced them, like a DJ. 'And this is Tom Waits's version of Somewhere for you Marje because it's exceptionally beautiful and I love you.' 'And here's a little number from Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville Don't Know Much,which makes me cry and think of you because I love you.' 'And here's Leonard Cohen at his most melodic singing Dance Me to the End of Love, and I've chosen this because, erm, I love you.' 'Now for something a little different, Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne, which I've chosen for you because I love you, even if its meaning is a bit more complicated.' The songs kept coming through the night and I played them really loud. 'And of course the night would be incomplete without Stevie Wonder's As. This one's for you Mum because yes, you've guessed it, I love you.'
Each one was a love song and in their own way about immortality. I didn't know it at the time. And I didn't know what was coming next. I was just somehow reaching for the right songs, in a state almost as altered as Mum's. I like to think she heard them. But even if she didn't, she knew how much I loved her. She died early the next morning. Simon Hattenstone
Back in the late 90s, whenever melodic noise-rockers Idlewild would tour, my sister and I would go. We had spent hours engaged in classic sibling bonding: listening to guitar squall while I prevented the mosh pit from stamping on my little sister's head. Yes, her taste often tended more towards the likes of Steps, but for some reason we both loved this band's scuzzy pop, and one day, she made me a tape of one of their live gigs.
I was extremely excited. I saved it for a long bus journey, popped it into my Walkman, fired it up and sunk into angular, dissonance-strewn indie. It was absolute joy. There were new songs! Ferociously taut renditions of the classics! And … the random intrusion of Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer.
Confusion reigned as I suddenly found myself listening to a Christian rock troupe's schmaltzy ode to smooching – until it abruptly segued back to the gig. And then back to Kiss Me. And then back to the gig. Five minutes later, a blisteringly distorted riff mutated into an advert for a local car dealership. At which point I realised something: my sister had decided to check out a poppier radio station halfway through recording – and inadvertently created the world's worst Idlewild remix tape.
My sister has since died. I'll never be able to drag her out of a mosh pit again, or hear her attempt at a silly impression of the vocal tics of Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble. But I'll always have that tape. It might have been intended as a killer Idlewild live recording, but it's ended up something much more precious: a testament to her glorious daftness. Best mix tape ever. Alexi Duggins
I was given this mix tape in early 2004, at the outset of a relationship that lasted for almost a decade. It lives on a shelf in my living room with a few other cassettes, displayed for aesthetic reasons, since I no longer have a tape deck to play them on. Looking at it now, it seems like a vivid portrait of my ex and his then passions, from the picture of James Dean rolling his eyes on the handmade cover to the scratchy and abrasive music on the tape itself, from Her Jazz by Huggy Bear to Gutless by Hole, deep cuts like Other Animals are #1 by Erase Errata alongside classics like Patti Smith's Redondo Beach.
More than half the tracks are by female or female-fronted acts; my ex was brought up by his mum and most of his friends were women. He once told me that men had been responsible for all the negative experiences in his life (I suspect that our relationship has now been added to this list). Looking at the track listing I'm reminded of his great taste, noting the appearance of Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, then pretty recent but now a romantic classic.
We had our ups and downs, to put it mildly, but I'm glad I have this memento of our early tenderness and intimacy. Alex Needham
I am very slightly too young for the golden era of mix tapes – open my first Walkman and you would have only found storybooks on tape – but I am exactly the right age to be part of the micro-generation of teens that burned CDs (or MiniDiscs) of stolen MP3s from LimeWire for our friends and crushes.
There were two enormous problems with this method of sharing songs: one, the file compression made everything sound unlistenably terrible, and two, what you thought you were illegally downloading from LimeWire was very often not what you were actually downloading from LimeWire. I discovered this when my best friend made me a mix of what she thought were songs by my favourite German metal band, Rammstein. In fact it was a CD full of entirely random European songs that someone on LimeWire had egregiously mislabeled, including a Dutch version of Aqua's Barbie Girl, all with that spangly sound that was unique to low-quality MP3 mixes of the era.
We laughed about this for years, but fun fact, that mix CD was how I discovered Finnish metal (and Megaherz, the most early-00s German metal band to exist). Keza MacDonald
The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand. Weezer's Holiday. The Cribs' The Lights Went Out. These are some of the songs that my first boyfriend chose to burn on to a CD for me. It was summer 2006. I had found my true tribe outside of school, most nights (and early mornings) were spent in fields, my last year of sixth form was nigh and I had finally fallen in love. I fell hard. I could not believe – or handle! – feeling that way about somebody.
Music was starting to properly soundtrack my life for the first time: club nights and indie gigs, soaking up the albums my new mates played and making plans for Leeds Festival. My ex opened my world to some great music I wouldn't know without him. I thought that CD was so cool and romantic. ('He wants to hold my hand!')
The short version of this tragic love story: the relationship soured and it ended by winter. It would take me at least a couple of years to get over it.
At some point, I threw the CD in the bin along with everything else he had given me – too young, inexperienced and cried out to know I might quite want to see these items again one day. But every time I hear those songs play – and I do regularly seek them out – I'm comforted by a rose-tinted wave of nostalgia. They take me back to a time when life was just really starting – way more highs and heartbreak ahead. I'm glad I'll always have the music to take with me. Hollie Richardson
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The Guardian
29 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Women have more power than they think': self-help superstar Mel Robbins on success, survival and silencing her critics
'Putting yourself in this room today,' booms Mel Robbins from the stage of a sold-out London theatre, 'is a decision that's going to change the trajectory of your life.' Rows and rows of (almost exclusively) women gaze at the podcaster and self-help superstar, her image on a huge screen behind her. It's the final day of Robbins's first tour, this one to promote her latest book and viral sensation, The Let Them Theory – her tool for helping people detach from other people's dramas. Outside forces, she teaches, from annoying relatives to strangers in a traffic jam, are not in your control; nor are you responsible for what they do, feel or think (so long as they are not your children). It's a waste of time, energy and emotion to even try. Instead, you should just say to yourself: 'Let them.' Robbins is bounding around, sparkling with charisma and no-nonsense charm, first in a comfy tracksuit (available from her website for £150), then in boss-lady blazer and sexy denim. For nearly two hours, she commands the stage – occasionally joined by her two grown-up daughters, one of whom, Sawyer, is the book's co-author – and the women in the audience smile, nod, hug each other and cry. By the finale, when the confetti cannons go off and yellow ribbons rain down to Coldplay's booming A Sky Full of Stars, I have promised myself I will (in no particular order) lose my perimenopause tummy, be nicer to my children and care less what other people think. I am, I decide, beaming to myself, ready to change the trajectory of my life. Three days before I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of Mel Robbins, when I still had some semblance of cynicism and didn't have phrases such as 'You have everything you need inside you to make it' flashing across my brain like ticker tape, I meet her in a London cafe. Robbins has flown in this morning, but you wouldn't know it. The qualities that make her such a good podcast host – warmth, energy, humour – are intense in person. People, she argues, mostly need encouragement. 'I think that's the number one thing in people's way,' she says, untouched iced coffee in front of her. 'This sense of discouragement: my life is fucked, so nothing I do is going to matter, or I'm too old, or I'm too late, or too this.' This is where Robbins comes in, and it seems to work. The 56-year-old has a huge, cultish following. Her podcast has had more than 200m downloads, she has 10m Instagram followers and Let Them has sold 5m copies since it was published in December. She has celebrity stans, including Chrissy Teigen and Davina McCall, who called her the 'queen of beginning again'. Oprah has anointed her, saying, 'I have over the years read probably thousands of books. And Let Them is by far just one of the best self-help books I've ever read. It is right up there with all the greats … saying everything I was trying to say for 25 years.' If you have spent any time on Instagram, Robbins will probably have been served up to you at some point, face framed by blond hair and heavy-rimmed black glasses, to dispense some no-nonsense advice. Someone may have sent you one of her podcast episodes, in which she interviews renowned doctors and professors, such as the Harvard psychiatrist and happiness expert Robert Waldinger or the orthopaedic surgeon Vonda Wright (though not all guests are so rational – at least one medium has appeared). Other shows might find Robbins spending an easy hour talking about herself and the lessons she has learned about everything from diet and relationships to boosting confidence and setting boundaries. Even if you don't know her name, you have probably been touched by her rules for empowered life. Maybe people have begun saying 'let them' around you when they're frustrated by friends' behaviour, or used the five-second rule (counting down from five before doing something uncomfortable) or high-fiving themselves in the mirror before breakfast – blame Robbins for all of that. She is the ultimate in personal brand-building – a lawyer turned motivational speaker who, according to legend, dragged herself out of an $800,000 debt to become a star of the advice economy in her 50s. She wanted to do the tour, she says, to look her audience in the eye. 'It's just a reminder that who I'm reaching are normal people trying to get up every day and do a little better. I'm not trying to reach people who want to be billionaires.' Does she feel like a rock star, soaking up the adulation? 'I don't think about that,' she insists. 'When you have something this extraordinary happen this late in life, you're very clear about what matters – my family and my friends, and I'm mostly driven by the impact that I can make.' Self-development is huge, from questionable wellbeing influencers to any number of writers and podcasters exploring what it takes to be healthy, happy and successful. What does it say about us, in the affluent west, that we all crave it? Are we all narcissists? 'No,' Robbins says with a smile, 'but we all have that self-centredness. I personally feel we're so overoptimised for productivity, but what I also hope happens is that, in listening to podcasts and reading this book, you're reminded of what's actually important to you. Most of us focus on the wrong things for too long, and then we realise we didn't spend the time we wish we had with our parents while they were here, and we realise we worked too many late nights at work and we didn't spend time with our pets or our friends.' Is all this advice, overwhelmingly aimed at women, just another way to make them feel they need more, or to change, or be perfect? Robbins brushes over the question, saying, 'I guess what I want women in particular to know is you have more power than you think.' She is sometimes criticised for not being a qualified psychologist or therapist, or for dispensing obvious or age-old advice, but that is to miss her talent – she has an ability in the way she distils and communicates information to mainline it straight to your brain. I know, because for years I've had her voice in my head in a way that few other wellbeing podcasters – and I've listened to them all at some point – take up residence. Robbins acknowledges that her insights aren't necessarily new. 'Everybody has said 'let them' a bazillion times,' she says. 'This is stoicism. It's radical acceptance. It's the serenity prayer.' What is it about her saying it that makes people listen? She ponders for a second. 'I think this is a moment. I've said to our team: we never would have been able to orchestrate something as extraordinary as the timing of this – a modern twist on a timeless rule of life, for a moment where it feels like the Earth is spinning off its axis. All of the things that have lined up, I don't feel that it's me; I feel in service of something bigger.' As a child growing up in Michigan, Robbins wanted to be a doctor like her father (her mother ran a kitchenware shop). Was she a confident teenager? 'I think people who knew me would say yes. What I would say is I was deeply anxious and insecure.' Her anxiety made her driven, she thinks, 'but I wouldn't call it confidence'. She 'barely made it through' law school – she had undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD – but thrived in mock trials and oral argument. For three years, Robbins worked as a legal-aid criminal-defence lawyer in Manhattan, representing people who couldn't afford to pay for representation. It taught her to develop intimacy fast. 'The job is actually about trust, and building trust with somebody that didn't pick you.' And it exposed her to people who had had extremely difficult lives. It was around the time New York City was being cleaned up, and with so many petty arrests to process, Robbins would often work in the night court. 'When you're representing somebody in a bail hearing, one of the things the judge considers is ties to community. Night after night, I would go into that courtroom, and I would call out for family or friends for this person, and no one was there. It broke my heart.' Later, it would be the reason she ends her podcast with the words: 'In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you I love you.' By this time, Robbins had met her husband, Chris. When he got a place at business school in Boston, they moved. 'I went to a large law firm and wanted to die,' she says. With four weeks of her maternity leave with her first child left, she reveals, 'I had a mental breakdown and said, 'I'm not doing that any more.' An interesting thing about human beings is that when you have a defined problem, most of us are good at solving it. I found a new job the night before I was supposed to go back.' For the next few years, Robbins worked for tech startups and digital marketers, and wondered what to do with her life, so she hired a life coach, who suggested that actually Robbins would make a good coach herself. She loved it, and was good at it. She started a daily call-in radio show, Make It Happen With Mel Robbins, and a newspaper column, and was already laying the foundations of her empire: there was a development deal with Disney, and books and a talkshow planned. In a 2007 magazine profile, Robbins, then in her late 30s, sounds hyper, talking up everything about herself – her sex life and marriage, her body, her work. Call it hubris. Within a couple of years her husband's business was struggling, leaving them $800,000 in debt. How did she cope? 'I wanted to kill him. I'm serious. I wanted to absolutely kill him. Those moments when things go off the rails in your life, it's easier to be angry than it is to be afraid, and I could tell he was afraid, which just made me even angrier, because I felt fearful that we'd never get out of the situation.' She felt incapacitated for about six months, she says. 'I drank myself into the ground. I was a bitch every time he was around. I withdrew from my friends. I didn't tell my parents what was going on.' She lost a long-term coaching job. 'I felt, how can I possibly give anybody advice when my life looks like this? I'm not even an impostor; I'm just a liar. And so my whole life kind of collapsed.' Blame seemed the obvious response. 'And then you avoid doing what you really could be doing. It goes back to what we were talking about: discouragement. I believed at that moment, at 41 with three kids under the age of 10, and liens on the house and no income coming in, that I would never get out of this.' It was in this state, slumped in front of the TV and seeing an advert that used images of a rocket launch, that Robbins had the idea that, instead of staying in bed the next morning, she would count down from five and launch herself out of it. It worked for other things – the idea being that if you give yourself more than five seconds, you will talk yourself out of doing something difficult or hard. In 2011, Robbins, who was still earning a living as a coach and motivational speaker, and had just published her first book, Stop Saying You're Fine, was invited by a friend to speak at a Tedx event in San Francisco. 'That was like a 21-minute-long panic attack,' she says with a laugh. She didn't intend to make her 'five-second rule' a thing, but she blurted it out towards the end. The video went viral (it has now had more than 33m views), then she published her second book, based on the 'rule', in 2017. Her next book, The High 5 Habit – essentially, high-five yourself in the mirror in the morning, setting a plan for the day, boosting confidence and silencing your inner critic – became a bestseller, and in 2022 Robbins launched her podcast. It's in this arena that Robbins, by talking about overcoming adversity, feels infinitely more relatable. In her episodes on trauma, she has described being sexually abused by an older child while on a family holiday, around the age of 10. She has also talked about the impact of getting a later-life ADHD diagnosis, and issues her husband and three children have gone through; part of her live show is about how she improved her relationship with her eldest child. How does she feel about using her personal life and trauma in her work? 'It's easier than hiding it,' she says. 'So many of us are putting on a front, yet every one of us is going through something. I feel that sharing, like any good friend does with another friend – that's a way to make all of this scientific research relatable and understandable.' When she's more open or vulnerable, is listener engagement greater? 'Here's what I do know – the uglier I look on social, the better the content does,' she says with a laugh. 'I don't even think about it as being vulnerable. To me, it's just easier to be honest. When you feel like you can't disclose something, you're judging yourself. Being free with your history and what you've learned from it means you don't judge, and you don't have shame around what's happened to you.' If Robbins was successful before, her Let Them theory has taken that to another level. Essentially, it's simple: if you spend too much time worrying about what other people do or say, which you can't control anyway, you're giving them too much power. Focus on yourself. It isn't about being a doormat, or about resignation, she says. 'When you say, 'let them', you're not allowing anybody to do anything. You're recognising what people are doing, and what's in your control and what's not.' This is only the first stage in the process. One problem with saying 'let them', she acknowledges, is that it can put you in a position of judgment and superiority. 'That's why it works, because when you feel superior, that unhooks you from the frustration or hurt you may feel.' But if that's all you do, she warns, you can end up isolating yourself. 'At some point you've got to use the 'let me' part. I think what keeps you from becoming an asshole and cutting people out of your life is: let me decide what I'm going to do in response.' Maybe that will be accepting you're the sibling who always checks in, or the friend who invariably makes the plans. 'Maybe, conversely, you're going to realise: I've been chasing these people all this time; they don't give me anything in return. Is this what I deserve? Maybe I should pour my time into creating other types of relationships.' That's the harder part. But, Robbins adds, 'If all people want to do is say, 'let them', then let them.' How has her theory changed her life? 'I had no idea how much I allowed the outside world and meaningless bullshit to penetrate me and my peace, whether it was traffic or people walking slowly, or somebody who didn't text me back when I thought they should, or somebody's mood.' Applying her tactic helped, she says, 'to let them have their emotions and opinions, and then remind myself: what do I want to think about this? What do I want or not want to do?'. Robbins's style can be quite tough. 'You think I'm tough?' Forthright, then. 'I think I'm honest,' she says. In her book, she writes that, if you're stuck in a job you hate, 'the harsh truth is you're the one to blame – because you are choosing to stay in a job that makes you miserable'. Doesn't that underestimate the reality for people who don't have the privilege of walking into another job? 'You always have options,' Robbins says. 'You may not have options tomorrow, but you have options. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck and you are sleeping on a friend's couch, if you believe there are no other options, you won't look for them. It is important to recognise that, with time and consistent effort, you can create different options.' We're in a moment, she says, 'where the headlines are terrifying, economies are faltering, AI is coming, jobs are redundant. You don't know if you're going to get laid off.' That's beyond your control, she says. 'Say: let them lay you off. You're recognising it could happen, and reminding yourself to not waste time and energy worrying, feeling like a loser, feeling like you've got no options. So let me, every day after work, spend an hour getting my résumé together, networking and doing what I need to do to build skills. You will feel empowered when you focus on what's in your control, and what's in your control is what you put your time and energy into.' It can be applied to big or small things. Robbins describes herself as a 'very political person'. 'If we're ever going to get things back on track in terms of people feeling stability and peace and support, you can't burn through all your energy feeling powerless. You've got to remind yourself: I actually have the power to change this. If it bothers me, the more energy I spend arguing about it and venting about it, the less time I'm spending getting myself organised to change this.' With Robbins's increased success and profile has come, inevitably, more criticism. How does she deal with that? 'Let them,' she says instantly. Does it not hurt when she reads horrible comments about herself online? 'No.' She doesn't look, anyway – people who are intent on misunderstanding aren't her problem, she adds. Does she think male podcasters get an easier time? 'Yes – no question. Absolutely.' One of the persistent allegations is that Robbins plagiarised 'let them' from a poem that went viral in 2022. She has always said she hadn't seen the poem and her inspiration came from the night she was trying to micromanage her 18-year-old son's school prom, and her middle child, her daughter Kendall, told her in a moment of exasperation to 'let them' – get soaked in the rain, have tacos if they want them, just let them. 'Anybody that can't see that a poem is very different than a book that makes a case for a theory, with an 18-page bibliography, doesn't want to see, and doesn't understand the word plagiarism either,' Robbins says. I agree it's a fairly weak criticism, as is the complaint that she has stretched a basic idea into a whole book (and now tour) – something that could be applied to just about every self-help book ever written. Her podcast remains free and, unlike many other motivational 'influencers', she doesn't flog online courses, or supplements. I take more issue with some of the oversimplistic things she says: 'Success, love, happiness, money, friendship – these things are in limitless supply,' said the multimillionaire Mel Robbins to the billionaire Oprah Winfrey, on the latter's podcast. Robbins says she follows her own rules 'about 90% of the time'. When she's at home in Vermont, she gets up around 6am, makes her bed, 'so I don't crawl back into it', and high-fives herself in the mirror. She might take a bite of a banana, 'because of what Dr Stacy Sims said about cortisol and women never working out fasted'. Sims, a physiologist and one of her podcast guests, says that, for women, exercising on an empty stomach means burning lean muscle and holding on to fat. 'I was like: motherfucker, we've been gaslit by the fitness industry. It's incredible what she shared about women not being little men.' Robbins walks her dogs to get her early sunlight (it helps with the circadian rhythm), drinks water before her coffee, has breakfast. She has a regular walking group with friends. She likes to cook, so she'll start prepping dinner when she does lunch, then it's bath and bed not long after 9pm. 'I'm so fucking old,' she says with a laugh. 'But I love my sleep.' In the middle of it all is work. She wants, she says, to be an example 'of leaning into new things and reinventing myself over and over, and clawing our way out of debt in our 40s. There's so much you can do.' Robbins, similarly to Oprah, controls her empire. 'I don't want to be in a situation where I'm pissed off about the deal I made, and if I'm in control of what happens, the only person I can truly be mad at is me.' Is she a life coach or a media mogul? 'I'm just your friend, Mel,' she says with a bright smile. A few days later, on stage, Robbins is so overcome with emotion, she can barely get her last words out: 'I love you, I do, and I believe in you.' There are cheers and whoops, and that blast of confetti and Coldplay, and we leave on a high. I chat to two women, in their 40s, who had been sitting behind me, emotional at points; one has a delicate tattoo on her arm of a dandelion releasing its seeds and the words 'Let them … Let me'. They love Robbins, says Eva (with the tattoo), 'because she's so normal. She's been through stuff like all of us have, but she's got grit and determination, and she's an example that, if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.' Her friend Hayley says the years and the struggles since the pandemic have left her feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. 'I know that I need to make a change,' she says, eyes shining. 'She makes you believe you can do it.' The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is published by Hay House UK at £22.99. To support the Guardian, order your copy at Her podcast is available here.
Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trailblazing Aussie crooner dies - Fans mourn the loss of the 60s music icon who became a beloved TV favourite and live performer
The Australian music industry is mourning the loss of trailblazing Australian singer Johnny Florence, who died in hospital earlier this week aged 92. The iconic crooner was born in Egypt in 1933 and moved to Australia in 1956, where he began his incredible and long-lasting musical career. His passing was confirmed on Monday on social media by a family member, who shared a heartfelt message alongside a touching photo of the star in a hospital bed, surrounded by loved ones and flashing a warm smile. 'It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of a great man,' the post read. 'Please check back for funeral arrangements.' Florence was renowned for his incredible performances and some of his popular songs include I Gotta Woman, Learning the Twist, Here He Comes, and A Little Bit More. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Tributes have since poured in for the beloved performer, who rose to fame as the tenor for musical group The Thin Men and later became a mainstay of the Australian music and television scene. 'We are saddened to learn that South Australian music stalwart Johnny Florence has passed away at the age of 92,' the South Australian Music Museum wrote in a tribute. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Johnny moved to Australia in the '50s, where he captivated audiences with his soulful voice and charismatic stage presence. Blending classic crooning with contemporary pop, he quickly became one of the nation's most recognisable voices. He rose to fame on popular Adelaide variety shows like Woodies Teen Time and Adelaide Tonight, before gaining national attention with regular appearances on In Melbourne Tonight and Bandstand. His live performances were described as 'celebrations of life' that brought people together through music. Throughout his career, Johnny performed alongside fellow legends of the era including Johnny O'Keefe, Dig Richards and Laurel Lee. He helped define the sound of Australia's booming live music scene in the 1960s and beyond. Florence's love for performing saw him continue to perform at local South Australian venues well into his 90s, wowing audiences with his uncanny ability to mimic the vocal stylings of Roy Orbison. A throwback video shared by the South Australian Music Museum on Monday showed the entertainer in his prime, belting out a storm on stage during the 1960s. 'Vale Johnny Florence 1933 – 2025,' the museum wrote. 'Here is a video celebrating his career. Please join us in remembering him.' Fans took to social media to express their heartbreak, remembering Florence not only as a gifted entertainer but as a kind and humble man who brought joy to thousands. One heartbroken fan wrote: 'Johnny was one of the greats – so much talent and such a generous spirit. RIP.' Florence also appeared on the popular '60s Australian music show Sunnyside Up, opposite veteran actor Maurie Fields. He had been divorced for some years and is survived by several children and grandchildren.
The Sun
29 minutes ago
- The Sun
I'm a female sports presenter, here's what it's really like being a pundit, you wouldn't believe the sexism I have faced
THIS summer the spotlight is truly on women when it comes to the world of sport. With the Lionesses storming into the semi-finals of the Euros and the Women's Rugby World Cup set to kick off in August, girl power is the theme on and off the pitch. 5 5 However, unfortunately despite their incredible achievements so many women in the industry are still at the receiving end of toxic sexist comments as Reshmin Chowdhury knows all too well. 'I had to fight hard to be a female sports presenter,' Reshmin, 47, says. 'It wasn't easy and I tackled racism and sexism in sport reporting to forge my career. 'There was no playbook for me to follow to get to the job I have now.' Mum Reshmin, lives in London with her daughter, 12 and 12 year old son while dividing her time appearing as a presenter and sports commentator on TNT Sports and hosting Game Day Exclusive on talkSPORT on Saturday mornings. In the last five years she's made headlines fronting the FIFA World Cup in Qatar for BeIN Sports, covering the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games for Eurosport and Discovery Plus, and helping helm the UEFA Euro 2000 for ITV Sport. Reshmin says: 'If you had told me 30 years ago this would be my job, I'd have said you were crazy. 'I would have laughed it off as an impossible dream. 'Now I know through the ups and downs the impossible is possible. 'It's been hard to get here, and I have fought some tough battles to be accepted.' Reshmin Chowdhury talks about ethnic prejudice in sports broadcasting Reshmin grew up in East London, raised in what she describes as an open minded and progressive Bengali Muslim family. She says: 'Aunts and uncles surrounded me and I grew up supported by a huge second-generation community where education, culture, religion, and music constantly celebrated.' As a teenager Reshmin admitted she was sports crazy. 'My brother and I would obsessively watch everything from Wimbledon to football together,' she says. 'I was a 'sports nerd girl' - that was unusual but when it came to facts and figures about all different types of sport I lived and breathed them.' After leaving school Reshmin graduated from the University of Bath with a degree in politics and economics. In 2003 she completed a post graduate diploma in newspaper journalism at Harlow College. 'I had a degree in politics and started doing low level assistant jobs in newsrooms and that made sense to people,' she says. 'I had a politics degree, and I was training as a news reporter. 'The thought of a British Bengali woman being fascinated by sport and becoming an expert sports commentator was something most people didn't even consider possible. 'I soon realised I didn't want to be pigeonholed. 'I wanted to be a TV presenter and reporter, and I wanted to do sport. 'When you factor in, I was not just a woman but a British Asian woman and the odds were pretty much stacked against me.' Reshmin admits she thrives on challenges saying the key to her success was a passion for sport and a desire to prove people wrong. 'I went through a number of years knowing what I wanted to do but not knowing how to get into TV presenting and reporting,' she says. 'There was no guidance or even training programmes then which could be followed when I was starting out. 'Diversity hiring wasn't common then and I didn't use that track to jumpstart my career.' Reshmin admits she found herself constantly having to prove to potential bosses and colleagues she knew all the ins and outs of football. 'Everyday was a test, a test to be recognised and taken seriously,' she says. 'I'd be asked questions in the office or even on air about unusual football facts or players and I knew if I got something wrong, I'd be judged negatively 'There were times it was unpleasant. It wasn't right. 'There were times people thought I was there to take notes or make the coffee. TV sports presenters make a mint. The biggest and best are signed up on yearly deals with the likes of the BBC, ITV and Sky for your viewing pleasure. Laura Woods is dominating the media landscape at the moment, leading TNT Sports' coverage and ITV's. Alex Scott and Jermaine Jenas are two of the fresher faces for the BBC's sporting output. Then, it's the old guard of Gary Lineker and Mark Chapman who also command hefty fees for their Match of the Day programmes. SunSport has taken a look at how those big names rank and compiled a list of the top 10 highest earning stars that grace our TV screens. With number one worth a whopping £29.4million more than number 10! 'Would they have asked a man to jump through hoops in sports journalism? No, of course not. But like it or not women have to even today. 'I'm not full of myself but looking back I am proud I could pioneer a small path for other British Asian women in the competitive field of sports reporting world.' Reshmin admits that she finds the rise of nepo babies, children who are successful because of their parents, 'annoying'. 'When I started my TV career, I didn't have an 'in',' she says. 'We've all seen an increase in nepo babies - the children of the rich and famous all over the world getting jobs on the back of their parents. 'It puts so much pressure on those kids and it isn't fair on other people. Some children from non-famous families give up because they feel the system is rigged.' Reshmin admits she also has her hands full juggling motherhood and a high-profile career and struggles with mum-guilt. 'My children were born 20 months apart and I took time off to care for them,' she says. 'I came back and had to work extra hard to catch up. 'It's not a complaint, it's just what happens in the work of competitive sports journalism. 'I always have mum guilt. I worry I am not doing enough and have to be regimented with my time.' Reshmin has partnered with Talking Futures to launch the Career Transfer Hub – giving parents access to information on their child's education options just like football agents have transfer insiders, negotiation teams and career scouts. 'I know the pressure kids feel in the lead up to GCSE's, A- Levels, and mock exams,' she says. 'Many are making huge decisions before summer holidays about leaving school, starting college, or getting jobs. 'I know just how vulnerable many teens feel and how confused they are about these live altering decisions. 'That's why the Career Transfer Hub is such a great solution to getting parents – like me – more engaged. 'It's time we used the same passion and time we give to football to help our teens take their next step. "Whether it's T-levels, apprenticeships, HTQs or other options, these are the real career-defining transfers – and our teens deserve our full support.' 5
