
The truth behind Russell Crowe's dramatic slimdown revealed
And now, the reason behind his dramatic weight loss has come to light: He's shredding for the wedding.
The Gladiator star, 61, and his fiancée Britney Theriot, 32, have been at the centre of wedding bell rumours for a while and it seems Russell is ready to take the leap into matrimony.
'Russell had to slim down for his Great Depression movie he's about to start filming in Bavaria [The Weight with Ethan Hawke ] but he's also said he wanted to be in shape for his wedding day to Britney,' a source close to the star told Woman's Day.
'He's been getting heat from his boys for stringing Britney along and avoiding setting a date.
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The Gladiator star and his fiancée Britney Theriot have been at the centre of wedding bell rumours for a while and it seems Russell is ready to take the leap into matrimony
'He wanted to be in shape for his wedding day to Britney,' a source close to the star told Woman's Day
'Now he's finally back down to his ideal 'groom-worthy' weight, there are no excuses,' the insider revealed.
It comes after Russell ignited rumours he is set to tie the knot with Britney in Rome.
Earlier this year, claims were circulating that the couple were eyeing up an Italian wedding after reportedly visiting a church during their latest visit to the city.
The couple, who started dating in 2020, visited Rome last year when Russell performed with his band The Gentlemen Barbers at the Forum Theatre.
They were spotted sightseeing during their lavish getaway and reportedly visited a church in the city.
'Italy was always going to be their wedding destination. Every time they go there, they come back more in love,' an insider told Woman's Day.
'It's always been their dream to get married there.'
Russell and Britney frequently visit Italy together and first sparked engagement rumours during a trip to the European country last year.
Russell cut a dashing figure when he attended the Golden Bee Awards in Malta last week with Britney
The pair confirmed their long-rumoured romance with a kiss on a tennis court in November 2020.
Russell cut a dashing figure when he attended the Golden Bee Awards in Malta last week.
The Aussie star was looking trim and terrific in an all-black look that consisted of an immaculately tailored suit paired with a crisp black dress shirt and vest.
He added a pop of colour to his monochrome display with a golden pocket square.
Russell's fiancée also attended the event, and looked equally stylish in a longline shift dress.
The Broken City actress opted to keep her accessories to a minimum, but carried a chic designer handbag.
At one point, Russell was photographed catching up with comedian-turned-author David Walliams.
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Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Katie Couric gets the last laugh in luxe look after slamming Bezos and Sanchez wedding as 'tacky'
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Times
3 hours ago
- Times
How Britain's fluent footballers are finally beating language barriers
There he was at Wimbledon, the blazer, sunglasses, tan and swept-back hair — looking every last centimetro an Italian movie star. Except it was good old Scott McTominay. ' Come stai?' ('how are you?') he asked a talkSPORT interviewer. ' Tutto bene?' ('is everything OK?') McTominay's metamorphosis at Napoli is one of the stories of our age and from a British perspective his embrace of local language and culture is as delightful as his success on the pitch. Because, if we're honest, ability to adapt abroad does not come easily to Brits. One of our greatest footballers, after all, was Ian Rush, who, when asked to explain why he couldn't score at Juventus, replied that being in Italy was like being in a foreign country. But McTominay is new school. Since transferring from Manchester United last summer he has taken biweekly Italian lessons with a university tutor, while using several language apps to improve his fluency. His team-mate and Scottish compatriot Billy Gilmour is the same. McTominay now records video messages to fans in Italian and can navigate Italian TV interviews. He's determined to keep getting better. Even more assimilated is Fikayo Tomori, the England centre back who joined AC Milan in 2021 and used lockdown to learn Italian to a high level, speaking it with a native accent. Football's polyglots... and some useful phrases Players who speak a variety of languages Romelu Lukaku Napoli and Belgium striker: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Flemish, Italian, Lingala Henrikh Mkhitaryan Inter Milan and former Armenia winger: English, Armenian, French, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, German, Italian Nadia Nadim AC Milan and Denmark women's forward: English, Danish, German, Persian, Dari, Urdi, Hindi, Arabic, French Amadou Onana Aston Villa and Belguim midfielder: French, German, English, Dutch, Wolof — and is learning Spanish Managers and coaches Mike Arteta Arsenal: Spanish, Basque, Catalan, English, Portuguese, French, Italian (and he claims an eighth: 'Scottish') José Mourinho Fenerbahce: Portuguese, English, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French Nuno Espirito Santo Nottingham Forest: Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, Russian Roy Hodgson English, Swedish, French, Italian, German —and even taught French as a sideline when in South Africa as a player Arsène Wenger French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese Foreign language cheat sheet (from the Futbol Lingo app) 'Switch of play' Changez le jeu (French), Spiel Verlagen (German), Cambia de orientacion (Spanish), Skipt um Kannt (Icelandic), Zhuanji jingong (Mandarin) 'Penalty spot' Punkt pola karnego (Polish), Penalti noktasi (Turkish), Strafschopstip (Dutch), Nuqtat darbat aljaza (Arabic) 'Referee' Arbitro (Italian, Portuguese, Spanish), L'arbitre (French), Scheidsrichter (German), Domari (Icelandic) …and some interesting idioms (from 'Do You Speak Football' by Tom Williams) 'The Top Corner' in different countries: Spain Donde anidan las aranas (literal translation: 'Where the spiders nest') Egypt Fil maqass ('In the scissors') Brazil Onde dorme a coruja ('Where the owl sleeps') Algeria Wayn yeskon shaytan ('Where Satan lives') 'A nutmeg' in different countries: France Petit pont ('Little bridge') South Korea Alggagi ('Hatching an egg') Jamaica Salad Tammy Abraham learnt enough to conduct interviews in Italian while playing for Roma and two hours of language lessons a day during five years at Borussia Dortmund left Jamie Gittens, Chelsea's new signing, fluent in German. Harry Kane jokes about his continued struggles with German but in March a clip emerged of him taking lessons with a tutor at Bayern Munich that suggested he is better with the language than he lets on. Jude Bellingham learnt some German at Dortmund and threw himself into mastering Spanish after joining Real Madrid, using apps and taking lessons at home. Trent Alexander-Arnold noted his close friend's example and wowed with a long address in fluent Spanish at his Real unveiling. Sensitive to accusations that considerable time was spent plotting his transfer from Liverpool, Alexander-Arnold's camp declined to clarify how long he had been learning the lingo when contacted for this article — but an experienced Spanish-language teacher of footballers said, 'I found it incredibly impressive. That didn't strike me as just a few months' study.' Yet before lapsing into parochial self-congratulation it should be acknowledged that British players are merely beginning to do what those of other nationalities have done for years. Kylian Mbappé spoke Spanish to a higher level at his Real unveiling and started learning Spanish as a 15-year-old because, even at that age, he was planning to play in La Liga one day. McTominay's Napoli team-mate Romelu Lukaku speaks nine languages and at United he played with Henrikh Mkhitaryan (eight languages), Bruno Fernandes (five languages) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (five languages). He was managed by José Mourinho, speaker of six languages, whose route into coaching began with a stint as Sir Bobby Robson's translator at Barcelona. Sixteen of the Premier League's 20 managers speak at least two languages (including Mikel Arteta, who has seven) but the only bilingual Brit among them is Graham Potter, who has Swedish. However, at the same time as a rise in polyglotism in the game so there is an acceleration towards English becoming football's lingua franca. Take refereeing. A number of Premier League refs speak more than one language, including a certain younger official, who would rather remain nameless, who speaks five. And yet increasingly Fifa and Uefa are pushing referees across the world to learn English. The men's and women's national teams of Belgium — a linguistically divided country — have used English in their dressing rooms since Roberto Martínez introduced the principle nine years ago. Long before he joined Liverpool Arne Slot was coaching and doing team talks in English. He demanded English be used at all times at Feyenoord, even getting dinner ladies to speak to players in English. His reasoning was that a common tongue builds unity and it would be more useful, in their future lives, if Feyenoord's many South American and African signings learnt English rather than Dutch. 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Dickinson was on duty the day Cantona signed for United and it befell him to go through the contract with the Frenchman and ask all the insurance questions. 'There was a certain one,' Dickinson remembers. 'Er, Eric, have you got Aids or ever had Aids? Non, non. OK, that's good.' Dickinson could fill several books with his experiences. One was working for Wigan Athletic during their era of high-profile South and Central American signings. He sat on their bench and in their dressing room to translate Paul Jewell's instructions to the Ecuador international Antonio Valencia. 'The other players would snigger because quite often Jewelly would turn round and tell me off,' Dickinson recalls. 'Like when Antonio didn't take the player on, or just played back inside: 'Fookin 'ell, Phil!' 'Once we had a home game against Watford and Paul brought out a video tactics board pre-programmed to replicate Watford's movements at corners. All these yellowy-orange discs representing the Watford players suddenly flew in all directions and [Jewell] was, 'Lads, it's like the f***ing Red Arrows!' 'There's always that totally untranslatable phrase that is wrapped in culture. Afterwards I said to Antonio, 'Well, the Red Arrows are our kind of acrobatic air force.' But I'm not sure that did the trick.' There was the interpreter who accompanied a Spanish-speaking player's wife to a pregnancy scan and, separated by a curtain for privacy, found themselves saying, 'There's the leg, here's the head.' Another had to talk a South American player's partner through breast-enlargement surgery. These are tales from the era before clubs invested properly in player care, when often the language tutor/interpreter was a foreign signing's only point of contact. Now most Premier League clubs have whole player-care departments. Hugo Scheckter, the former head of player care at West Ham United, Brentford and Southampton, founded The Player Care Group, the largest consultancy and education provider for sporting clubs across the world in player care. Research commissioned by his company showed that 80 per cent of all failed Premier League transfers from 2021-24 arrived from leagues where English is not the native language and Scheckter says, 'When going into clubs, we get them to buy into language learning from the top down. 'When I started in football it was from the bottom up. I'd try to persuade a player to do their English lessons but they wouldn't want to and there were no repercussions. Whereas now, either putting it in the contract or having the manager or director of football behind you, makes it a priority. 'On the pitch, in a high-pressure situation, if a player's English isn't good enough and a team-mate is shouting 'man on' or a manager is shouting an instruction and they can't get it immediately, it slows things down and in the modern game there isn't time for that.' David Moyes used Arteta as go-between when conversing with Marouane Fellaini at Everton and last season Jack Harrison (a Spanish speaker, having had a Costa Rican partner) proved invaluable in helping the Argentine player Charly Alcaraz communicate. Even after three seasons at Liverpool, Darwin Núñez leans on Alexis Mac Allister for language help but some players are linguistic sponges. The formidably bright Amadou Onana, at 23, is already fluent in French, German, English, Dutch and Wolof and has his heart set on learning Spanish — so asks the Villa head coach, Unai Emery, to use the language when speaking to him. Football language is different. At present Hunt is teaching a Spanish coach English. 'You have to be aware of the nuances,' he says. 'When we talk about a player playing deep in England we mean they drop towards their own goalkeeper and in Spanish the exact translation of 'deep' would be ' profundo '. But when you talk in Spanish football about ' profundidad ' you mean playing high up the pitch.' Offering a solution is Futbol Lingo, a brilliant app designed by two Uefa-licensed coaches based in England. One, Pierce Kiembi, speaks six languages and without widespread marketing his app has grown through word-of-mouth to almost 10,000 subscribers. Used by clubs in Spain, Belgium, Colombia and France it provides 1,600-plus football-specific words and phrases (with recordings of how to pronounce them) in 15 languages, including Arabic, Mandarin and Brazilian Portuguese. Users of the Futbol Lingo app can learn useful football phrases in a variety of languages… The vocabulary is provided by native-speaking players and coaches, rather than AI. 'Futbol Lingo won't teach you the whole language but it'll teach you phrases you need on the pitch, in the dressing room, in the boardroom,' Kiembi says. Maybe Carlos Tevez could have done with the app. During seven years in England he avoided learning more than a couple of English words, later claiming this was out of Argentine patriotism: 'I had a cultural problem with the English. I didn't want to learn English. I wanted them to learn Spanish,' Tevez said. One tutor sent to him found Tevez in no mood for a language lesson but rather craving a game of golf. He wondered, as they jumped in Tevez's car, how on earth the Argentinian would ask directions to a course. Tevez just typed 'GOLF' into his satnav and sped off with a grin. It took them to a run-down municipal course an hour away, rather than one more salubrious and local, but Tevez wasn't the type to care.


BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Leeds wedding in the morning, Manchester Oasis gig in the evening
A newlywed couple have said they like to "live on the edge" as they prepare to attend an Oasis concert hours after getting and Gareth Gladman tied the knot at Leeds Civic Hall on Saturday morning before catching the midday train to Manchester in their wedding Gladman previously told BBC Radio Manchester: "I had thought about getting changed but I really like what I've got on."I thought what's the point so I'm just going to keep it on - if it gets mucky, it gets mucky, I'm not going to wear it again." The couple, who have been together for 12 years and have two children, have been Oasis fans since got the places at the Manchester band's homecoming after Mr Gladman's father secured them in last year's scramble to book Gladman said her partner was "absolutely gobsmacked" at the time, adding: "He said 'Oh this is going to be the best day of my life'."I said, well imagine if you got married in the morning, it'd definitely be the best day of your life then."What started as an "off-the-cuff joke" quickly transpired into reality as Mr Gladman immediately booked their wedding ceremony slot online to time with the day of the Heaton Park gig. Speaking at Manchester Victoria railway station after their nuptials and still covered in confetti, he said: "One of the first albums I ever bought was an Oasis album."It's been part of my life forever so this couldn't be any more perfect today - get married and see them live. Brilliant."Mrs Gladman's sister has been hosting a barbecue for their 60 guests as the couple travelled to the bride said their families and friends had been "supportive", adding: "They love it, they know that we're quirky - we like to live on the edge."We're doing something that we really want to do." As part of her wedding outfit, Mrs Gladman, who works as a dressmaker, designed a denim jacket with lyrics from their favourite Oasis song "Live Forever".Mr Gladman added they were looking forward to seeing the band's reunion following their 16-year split."I've been waiting for it for that long but I'm just happy that we're getting the chance to do it. I'm just hoping to enjoy it basically." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.