Lily Allen likens social media ban to ‘withdrawing from drugs'
Speaking on the Miss Me? podcast, The Smile hitmaker shared, "I'm nearly two weeks into a complete social media ban. The beginning of last week, I was feeling incredibly low, like lower than I've felt in months. It was extremely heavy.' "And then I realised maybe this is because I'm not filling the gaps with doom scrolling and I've suddenly got this time for like reflection, you know what I mean?" She continued: "I don't have that much to do here in New York during the day,…
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Lucille Ball's daughter reignites controversy surrounding the star's biopic starring Nicole Kidman
Everybody loves Lucy. Aaron Sorkin's 2021 film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, not so much. Speaking at a Hollywood event earlier in June, the couple's daughter Lucie Arnaz reignited controversy about Sorkin's award-winning biopic Being The Ricardos, labelling some scenes as 'a crock of poop.' The 73-year-old complained Sorkin misrepresented her mother's relationship with her I Love Lucy writing team, and wrongly inflated tensions between Ball's co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley. Set during a tense week of rehearsals for their famous show – when Ball was strained by Communist rumours and fears Arnaz was cheating – Being The Ricardos (now streaming on Tubi) explores the couple's tumultuous partnership. Premiering in 1951, I Love Lucy transformed Ball from B-list movie actor to comedy legend. And yet Ball always insisted she wasn't naturally funny. Crediting her writing team for her famous scatterbrain schtick, Ball told Rolling Stone in 1983: 'What I am is brave. I have never been scared. And there was a lot to be scared about. We were innovators.' Always a shrewd businesswoman, Ball had to fight nervous network executives to have Arnaz cast as Ricky, and later include her real-life pregnancy in the show. Far from being a turn-off, more than 44 million viewers tuned in to watch the fictional Lucy and Ricky welcome their first child (in reality it was the couple's second, having already welcomed daughter Lucie two years earlier). That episode also became Ball's happiest moment on the show. 'Because I was really having a baby [son Desi Arnaz Jr] and it was my last show before I had the baby, so it was real and it was the most exciting thing in my life,' Ball told Entertainment Tonight in 1984, five years before her death. These events are detailed in Being The Ricardos, with Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem starring as the famously bickering couple. Despite being an executive producer on the Amazon Prime biopic, Lucie complained that Sorkin dismissed her concerns about factual inaccuracies in his script, telling her: 'Well, what do you know? You were 15 months old.' 'You can't talk to Aaron. He's Aaron Sorkin,' Lucie said. 'I tried to work on it and correct the incorrect parts, especially [my mother's] relationship with the writers. '[It was] totally wrong. She adored those people. They got along so well; none of that backstabbing, crazy, insulting stuff.' Despite reservations about the script, Lucie has always been glowing in her praise of Kidman and Bardem (who each gained Oscar nods for their performances), who initially faced criticism for their casting. Some questioned why the Spanish actor had been cast to play the Cuban bandleader, prompting Bardem to argue that nobody had complained when American actor Meryl Streep played British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, or Marlon Brando – an American with no Italian heritage – transformed into The Godfather's Vito Corleone. 'But me, with my Spanish accent, being Cuban? What I mean is, if we want to open that can of worms, let's open it for everyone … we should all start not allowing anybody to play Hamlet unless they were born in Denmark,' an exasperated Bardem told The Hollywood Reporter. There was also backlash against Kidman because she isn't typically a comedic actress. 'There seems to be a lot of discussion about Nicole Kidman [and people saying] it should be Debra Messing … I don't know, but here's the deal and what you should understand: We're not doing a remake of I Love Lucy,' Lucie posted on Facebook ahead of the film's release. 'No one has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo [or do] any of the silly things. It's the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother – not Lucy Ricardo – and her husband, Desi Arnaz, my dad – not Ricky Ricardo.' The fuss knocked Kidman's confidence. And, during an appearance on Live With Kelly And Ryan, she confessed: 'When the reality of playing her hit me, I went, 'What I have said yes to?' To which I then went, 'Oh no, I'm not right. Everyone thinks I'm not right, so I'm going to try to sidestep this.'' To nail the role, Kidman watched re-runs, took dialect lessons and worked with a movement coach to capture Ball's physicality, particularly when recreating the famous I Love Lucy grape squashing scene. In conversation with Chris Rock for Variety, Kidman admitted Ball was a tough act for anyone to follow, and that she was 'way out of my comfort zone'. 'She's Mount Everest. Just one of the most talented people to ever roam the earth.' Rock agrees. 'She could learn anything in a weekend. So, they would, like, write something on the show where she plays the tuba, and she would go, 'I can't play the tuba. Give me two days.' But mostly, Kidman told the comedian, the toughest part of the gig was unleashing her own silly side. 'I'd like to be funny,' she said. 'I'm never cast funny.' Celebrate Lucille Ball's incredible legacy with these shows, streaming now on Tubi. The Lucy Show: In this follow-up to I Love Lucy (after Ball's divorce from Arnaz), the red-haired star plays a widow who goes to live with her divorced pal, Vivian. Funny World Of Lucy: Broken into two chapters – the early and later years – this documentary is a deep-dive into Ball's life and career.
News.com.au
5 hours ago
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Green light for psychedelic drugs trial to treat binge-eating
Australian researchers will soon deploy a psychedelic compound found in 'magic mushrooms' to treat binge-eating in a world-first clinical trial. Experimental healthcare company Tryptamine Therapeutics announced the radical trial in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange this week, telling investors Swinburne University would conduct the open-label research on 12 patients suffering from binge-eating disorder. Open-label means there are no placebos involved and all patients and researchers know what is being administered. The patients will receives two doses of TRP-8803, a psilocin-based IV infusion. Psilocin, which is produced when psilocybin is broken down in the body, is a psychedelic compound that triggers changes in mood, perception and thinking patterns. Cognitive neuropsychologist Professor Susan Rossell, from Swinburne, designed the trial with Tryptamine and told NewsWire she hoped the psychedelics would open up the trial's participants to new ways of thinking. 'What we have found in other psychedelics work is that the psychedelic itself opens up people to think differently,' she said. 'And one of the things that we know with a lot of mental health conditions, is they start to have repetitive thinking and it becomes very rigid. 'So people with binge eating disorder, 'I need to consume lots of food to help with my emotional issues'. 'They are in that very stuck, rigid thought pattern and they can't find other ways to deal with their life stressors.' Binge-eating is the uncontrollable consumption of food and can lead to a range of serious health problems, including social isolation and weight gain. It is the second most common eating disorder in Australia. In the US, an estimated 1.25 per cent of adults experience the disorder each year and 1.6 per cent of teenagers aged 13 to 18 are affected. 'It's extraordinarily costly,' Professor Rossell said. The trial is expected to run for three to four months, with initial results due at the end of the year. Tryptamine CEO Jason Carroll said the primary objective of the trial was to assess TRP-8803's utility in treating the disorder, but it could also generate insights into how the product might help with other neuropsychiatric disorders. 'With patient recruitment initiatives now underway, we look forward to first enrolment and the commencement of baseline data generation from participations, prior to first patient dosing,' he said. Clinical trials involving psychedelics to treat medical conditions are growing around the world, but the impacts are not yet clear. Psychedelic drugs are illegal in Australia and there is evidence that consuming mind-altering substances can lead to adverse outcomes. A study on single-dose Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, funded by psychedelics company Compass Pathways and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2022, revealed mixed results, with most participants experiencing 'adverse events'. 'Adverse events occurred in 179 of 233 participants (77 per cent) and included headache, nausea, and dizziness,' the researchers found. A small number of participants suffered serious negative impacts, the study revealed, including suicidal ideation and intentional self-injury. Professor Rossell said the Swinburne trial would be safe. 'I don't know whether these medications are going to work or not but I've worked with them now for two years and I haven't had anything negative happen with anybody in my trials, in the right and safe environment,' she said. She also said the use of an IV solution added an additional layer of control. 'The IV is even more safe,' she said. 'If we start to be aware that the person is having an unpleasant reaction, we can stop it straight away with the IV. 'With the oral preparations, they have to work through it. And it can leave people with some unpleasant feelings.' Tryptamine, a listed company with a market capitalisation of $43m, stresses the 'confirmed reversibility' of TRP-8803 as a key selling point for the product. 'This formulation aims to overcome several limitations of oral psilocybin, including significantly reducing the time to onset of the psychedelic state, controlling the depth and duration of the experience and reducing the overall duration of the intervention to a commercially feasible time-frame,' the company states. 'TRP-8803 also provides dosing flexibility and the ability to terminate treatment if the patient is experiencing an adverse event.' The company held $4.6m in cash as of March 31.
