
Heartstopper's Joe Locke and trans star Dylan Mulvaney put on a VERY cosy display at Sabrina Carpenter concert as actor wears 'Straight 4 for pay' cap after 'hard launching' their relationship with 'couple's post'
The Heartstopper star, 21, wore a 'straight 4 pay $' cap as he danced the night away with the trans influencer, 28, just days after 'hard launching' their relationship with a 'couples snap' on social media.
Joe, who told Teen Vogue in 2023 that he had been 'openly-gay since the age of 12', was spotted throwing his arms around TikTok star and together shared a drink while chatting intently.
The Marvel actor cut a low key figure for the gig in a white t-shirt and jeans which he layered with a black sweater.
Meanwhile Dylan put on a very leggy display in a skimpy blue floral mini dress which she wore with matching hair clips and white heels.
While the pair seemingly confirmed a romantic relationship in their recent post, many fans were convinced they were just larking around and are only pals.
She captioned the post: 'First couples shoot thank you for having us at camp koko,' before Joe commented: 'Hard launch'.
Fans went wild by the pair's apparent coupling: 'Wait…. Is this a hard launch?!?': 'Omg omg omg': 'loooove this angel!': 'I can't even with all the hateful comments on here. Ignore them! Love is love': 'Why is everyone taking this seriously. come on y'all use your brain': 'Hot Couple': 'OH MY GOD????!!!'.
MailOnline have contacted Joe and Dylan's reps for comment.
Joe, who plays gay student Charlie Spring in Netflix's Heartstopper, spoke about sexuality for the first time to Teen Vogue: 'People have assumed [I am gay] and written it, and I haven't ever corrected anyone because I haven't felt the need to. But I've never specifically stated my sexuality'.
He told the publication that he knew he was gay from around the age of nine before adding: 'I have been openly gay since I was, like, 12'.
Meanwhile Dylan gained notoriety through her Days of Girlhood TikTok series in 2022, where she documented her gender transition for millions of viewers.
Earlier this year she published a memoir titled 'Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer' that reflects on her rise to fame and delves into some of her controversies.
She sparked what researchers at Harvard Business School called 'one of the biggest boycotts in American history,' when she partnered with Bud Light in 2023.
The pair couldn't keep their hands off each other while singing along to superstar Sabrina's biggest hits
The Marvel actor cut a low key figure for the gig in a white T-shirt and jeans which he layered with a black sweater
Dylan put on a very leggy display in a skimpy blue floral mini dress which she wore with matching hair clips and white heels
The pair appeared in great spirits as they soaked up the British weather
Dylan wrapped her arms around Joe during the show
It comes after the pair appeared to go public with their romance after Dylan shared a sun-soaked snap of the pair attending a fashion event to her Instagram on Tuesday
The backlash was swift and furious with customers staging a boycott and Kid Rock posting videos online of him shooting cases of Bud Light with a rifle.
The decision to hire her is estimated to have cost Anheuser-Busch more than $1 billion in lost sales and knocked it off the number one best-selling beer spot in the US.
In the book Dylan shares her experience of the so-called 'Beergate,' though she avoids mentioning Bud Light by name.
Conservatives became outraged after Dylan shared a sponsored video in which she posed with cans of Bud Light that had been printed with her likeness while she wore a dress inspired by Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Contrary to the impression from the backlash — which included countless transphobic comments — Bud Light only made the custom cans for Dylan and never sold them publicly.
However, the fact that the cans didn't exist in the wild that didn't stop conservatives and right-wing figures from vowing to boycott the beer.
In her book, Dylan said she felt abandoned and 'disappointed' by the brand, adding that she 'personally felt [Bud Light] did not condemn hate toward the trans community.'
Although the company didn't comment on the interview, But Light said in a in a 2023 statement: 'We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.'
She also admitted that she dealt with suicidal thoughts after facing an onslaught of threats, and even stalkers.
She feared that the backlash to the video had harmed the LGBTQ community.
'I would've never taken that job had I known any of those repercussions would've happened,' she said.
But she told People that two years later, 'I am about a thousand times stronger than I was before that situation happened.
'I'm finally in a place that I have healed, and I'm in such a good mental headspace. I feel like I'm really ready for the world to know what that experience was like behind the scenes,' she continued.
Dylan admitted that she was a 'big personality' who could be 'a little musical-theater cringey,' and she didn't claim to be for everyone.
However, she hoped that more brands could follow in Bud Light's tentative footsteps to help increase trans representation.
'I really hope we will get to see beer brands in the future be inclusive and find unique and interesting ways to include others in the conversation and in marketing that maybe is tasteful and helpful in moving culture in the right direction,' she said.
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BBC News
13 minutes ago
- BBC News
Two-day music event proposed to save Cambridge Folk Festival
One of the country's oldest folk festivals has confirmed it will return next year after this year's hiatus, but the event is set to only last two days. Cambridge City councillors will consider the scaled-down schedule as part of proposals for Cambridge Folk Festival to try to make it more sustainable and financially proposed event at Cherry Hinton Hall would have two medium-sized stages, as well as more basic camping, to "significantly reduce the infrastructure costs".The festival lost £320,000 in 2024, council officers said. Cambridge City Council has been reviewing the future of the event, which would have celebrated its 60th anniversary this it has organised free and ticketed Folk in the City events at the same venue this Folk Festival began in 1965 and in the past has seen performances from international stars such as Van Morrison, Billy Bragg and Sinead O' local authority said Cherry Hinton Hall would remain the anchor hoped the new format would "protect" the festival while making it "more inclusive and affordable" to more people across different parts of stars both locally and nationally would still be council officers' review indicated it would have to find £500,000 to support the festival in its current form, at a time it is already having to find annual savings of £11.5m. Labour's Antoinette Nestor, cabinet member for culture, economy and skills, said "protecting its legacy" was essential, adding: "We need to address the changes in audience behaviour – such as the decline in people wanting to pay for weekend camping tickets – and ensure the festival returns in a financially-resilient way".But Lib Dem leader Tim Bick was less happy, and said Labour had not encouraged enough views on the matter. He said in a statement: "The in-depth review that they've published doesn't inspire confidence. "It highlights a big weakness in the way the festival has been marketed and a leadership short on vision."He said the line-up, a calendar clash with Latitude festival and inflation had impacted sales this will consider the new proposals on 15 July. Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.


The Guardian
13 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘I gave Tom Cruise an impromptu organ lesson!' Anna Lapwood on her classical mashups – and her all-night Prom
At midnight, at least one night a week, Anna Lapwood ascends the stairs to the Royal Albert Hall's organ loft and climbs on to its bench. Safe in the knowledge that the audience for that evening's show have all dispersed, she starts playing the venue's enormous Henry Willis organ, all 10,000 pipes of it. Often, she's still going at five or six in the morning. 'It's the only downtime you get to practise,' she says. Occasionally, some celebrity from an aftershow party will be lured by her playing. 'It's how I met Benedict Cumberbatch,' she says with a laugh. 'And there was the time I gave Tom Cruise an impromptu organ lesson, after that live orchestral screening of Top Gun: Maverick. And Ludovico Einaudi, who came up and improvised something with me. And the band Wet Leg, who had a go on the organ. Sometimes it's curious cleaners or security staff who'll come up and chat and want to have a play. It's a lovely vibe.' Lapwood's followers on social media – including more than 1 million on Instagram and 1.2 million on TikTok – have long wanted to witness her in this late-night environment. Now, finally, she has found a way to make it happen. Next month, Lapwood will curate the first all-night Prom in over 40 years. 'It will be an explosion of energy. I'll be conducting a choir and playing the organ, but there will also be a whole load of other artists, like the pianist Hayato Sumino, or the fantastic Norwegian ensemble Barokksolistene – people in the Arctic know about performing during the night!' It's tempting to picture this Prom, which will run from 11pm until 7am, as a giant chill-out room. Not at all, says Lapwood. 'I hope that no one will be asleep!' she exclaims. 'And I hope people won't be dipping in and out. There will be two breaks. We're trying to make sure that there are rest areas – not sleeping areas! – and lots of coffee and snacks. The idea is that people will settle in, stay awake and enjoy all of it.' The event kicks off the next stage in Lapwood's sensational career. Still only 29, she has become the hottest property in classical music: a media-friendly, globally popular ambassador for her instrument and the genre. We meet in the 350-year-old chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, designed by Christopher Wren, which has been Lapwood's workplace since 2016 when, aged 21, she became the youngest ever director of music at an Oxbridge college. It's where she taught, rehearsed with choirs, led evensong and supervised two organ scholars. But the role became increasingly difficult to maintain in the light of her other commitments, which is why she made the 'gut-wrenching' decision to leave this summer. 'I've been doing admin on planes, marking homework while travelling to gigs, racing back from recording sessions to conduct choirs. And it's difficult for me to tell my students that they need to have a healthy work/life balance when they see me operating like this.' It leaves Lapwood free to pursue other ambitions. As well as her contract with Sony Records and her new role as associate director at the Albert Hall, she has a packed concert schedule over the next two years, including another recital at LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall (her first was a sell-out), a collaboration with Jonny Greenwood in Manchester (another all-nighter next February) and concerts everywhere from Bristol to Budapest, Nuremberg to New York. 'Venues used to want a confirmed setlist years in advance. I've tried to encourage more flexibility. I now just say 'programme includes' and list a couple of works – it's important that I'm able to play the music that I'm currently excited about, and get a bit spontaneous.' One noticeable feature of Lapwood's concerts is that, unlike most conductors or soloists, she talks to her audiences. Why does she do this? 'Partly because I'm stuck up in the organ loft, and I need to connect with people. Mainly, I want to break people into classical music, and it's essential to provide some sort of context and convey my enthusiasm. But every performer does things differently. Some conductors feel it's a distraction. It's a personal choice.' Last year Lapwood was at the centre of a mini furore for saying she welcomed people filming her concerts and uploading footage to social media. 'Again, It has to be the choice of the performer,' she says. 'Going on to the stage requires a lot of bravery, and you need to feel comfortable. Some people hate being filmed. I like it.' That hasn't always been the case. 'There was a time when I felt that I was always having to prove myself, a constant fear I'd mess up,' she admits. 'The main problem was that I was playing an entirely classical programme, the likes of Bach and Widor and Messiaen. Much as I love all those composers, I didn't want to play just them. It's only since I've started incorporating my own transcriptions of film scores into my sets that I have started to genuinely enjoy playing live.' Soundtracks have become a crucial part of Lapwood's repertoire. 'I was always acutely aware of how soundtracks could affect your emotional state. I found myself rewinding DVDs and transcribing scores, note for note, working out why they moved me. Now I've started turning those transcriptions into organ arrangements. You have to follow what makes your heart sing.' She has recorded and performed film themes by John Powell, Rachel Portman and, in particular, Hans Zimmer, and wants to do more by the likes of James Newton Howard, Harry Gregson-Williams and Nainita Desai. 'It was always my ambition to write music for film. I'd love to write a soundtrack for the organ, because it's never been done, and it's such a versatile instrument.' Lapwood's most recent album, Firedove, mixes many of her enthusiasms. It opens with her arrangement of Alan Menken's theme from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and ends with two pieces by real-life organists at Notre Dame de Paris: a fiendish scherzo by Louis Vierne and preludes and fugues by Maurice Duruflé. There are modern minimalist pieces she has commissioned by Poppy Ackroyd, Hania Rani and Ola Gjeilo; a touch of Zimmer, a hymnal choral arrangement of a Bob Dylan song and a bombastic mashup of Robbie Williams's Angels and Widor's Toccata. 'It sounds like I've arranged it thematically, but it's literally just a load of music that I'm excited by, held together by the thread of the organ sound.' Lapwood has no composing credits on any of her eight albums to date, something she wants to rectify. 'My composing brain is slowly waking up,' she says. 'I'm just getting comfortable enough to start writing for the organ. I loved composing when I was little, but then I got a low grade in a harmony and counterpoint exam and was told I couldn't continue composition. Which is nonsense!' Instead the young Lapwood put all her efforts into learning as many instruments as she could get her hands on. By the age of 18 she had reached grade-eight standard on the piano, violin, viola, harp and organ, and taught herself a dozen other instruments. 'I'd hear my older brother playing the flute and I'd nick his instrument and his tuition book. I'd buy cheap instruments from junk shops – guitars, cornets, drum kits – and learn from beginners books. It's like languages. The more you learn, the easier each one gets.' So immersed was she in mastering instruments that she didn't have much time to listen to music – something surprisingly common among musical prodigies. 'Schoolfriends found it hilarious that I couldn't tell the difference between Justin Bieber and Beyoncé,' she laughs. 'It was like I lived under a rock.' She remembers sharing the musical tastes of her father, a vicar turned teacher who would listen to evangelical hymns and 'quite bland popular classics' by the likes of Aled Jones and violinist Vanessa-Mae. 'It's why I never sneer at anyone's musical tastes,' she says. 'When I started working with choirs, people were like, 'How could you not know these big hits of the choral world?' But every area of music has its own smash hits, and all musicians have their blindspots.' Lapwood's blindspots have become a running joke on the Radio 4 cross-genre music show Add to Playlist, on which she is a frequent guest. She often admits to never having heard anything by the likes of, say, Adele, Justin Timberlake, the Rolling Stones or Keith Jarrett. She confesses that, in the past, she has been guilty of being musically incurious. She even admits she has not heard any of Dudley Moore's jazz recordings, despite being one of his successors as an organ scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, and having her name listed beneath his on a plaque in the chapel's organ loft. 'Sometimes, the amount of music I need to deal with just for work is exhausting,' she says. 'You can't listen to everything.' She relaxes, she says, by putting on the same Melody Gardot playlist she has listened to for years, and by watching trash TV like Australian Masterchef, or by cooking the same dishes day after day ('I'm currently in a shakshuka phase'). 'It is easy to get stuck in a rut, which is why I love being forced into learning about new areas of music.' Often this happens in public, such as when she guested on the organ with the electronica outfit Bonobo, or performed in a Ministry of Sound concert – both went viral. 'You suddenly learn about a new sound world, and appreciate different technical skills. All these musical barriers – barriers that I had enforced on myself – disappear. It's like, for some reason, my parents never cooked bacon. I went through my childhood thinking I'd hate bacon. Then, at university, I had a bacon sandwich, which was a eureka moment! It's why I'm increasingly open to all types of music.' Firedove by Anna Lapwood is out now on Sony Classical. Her new single, An Irish Blessing, with the Pembroke College Chapel Choir, will be released on 1 August. The late-night BBC Prom, From Dark Till Dawn, is at the Royal Albert Hall, London, from 11pm on 8 August


The Independent
18 minutes ago
- The Independent
BBC newsreader does bizarre peacock impression live on air – two years after finger gaffe
Watch as a BBC newsreader does a bizarre impression of a peacock live on air on Monday (7 July). Maryam Moshiri was presenting a segment on a loose peacock terrorising a small town in Wiltshire when she shocked viewers by imitating the sounds of the colourful bird. 'I've been told by my producer not to do an impression of a peacock so I'm going to do it anyway,' she said. Ms Moshiri went viral two years ago when she accidentally displayed her middle finger at the camera during a news bulletin in 2023, later apologising for the incident by saying she was 'joking around with the team in the gallery'.