Chair extraordinaire Anne Ward trades at a discount
On Monday morning, Articore (the ecommerce group behind Redbubble) announced chair Anne Ward had resigned. This was 18 hours after this column flagged a putsch by former CEO Richard Cawsey against Ward and the board. In the three trading days since, Articore's share price has surged 35 per cent. That's Anne!

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Perth Now
8 hours ago
- Perth Now
Music star Billy Joel: Love is not concrete
Billy Joel was "devastated" by his split from Christie Brinkley. The 76-year-old musician was married to the model between 1985 and 1994, and he loved the first few years of their romance. He said in his HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes: "Here I am dating this beautiful supermodel and ... me? I'm from Hicksville. What am I doing with her? What's she doing with me? But that was a very productive time for me. I wrote a lot of songs for her. She was a muse. "It was like being a teenager all over again. Experiencing those same emotions that I had when I was first discovering romance and love." Bill remembers the first few years of their romance being "so much fun". However, Billy admits that his music career and the stresses of fame took a toll on their relationship. He said: "I was in a relationship with someone who I cared deeply about. But I was not able to be at home. I was not able to be with my family. It was a very sad time for me. "I realised love is not concrete. You feel like it is, but there are things eating away at it. And in the end, it all catches up. It's hard. I was so devastated." Meanwhile, Billy has admitted to being given an ultimatum by Katie Lee, his then-wife, before he entered rehab in 2005. The musician checked into the Betty Ford Center for the treatment of alcohol abuse, after Katie instructed him to either seek help or end their relationship. He said: "With the rehab, you don't go for somebody else. You have to go for yourself. You have to want to do it. I didn't want to do it." Katie - who was married to Billy between 2004 and 2009 - noted that the music star struggled with addiction after taking a break from the spotlight. She explained: "I felt like he needed to be creating, he needed to be making music, performing, to turn down that anxiety of not having an artistic outlet. And there were struggles with addiction. It was really hard to navigate that, because I had no experience with it."


Perth Now
16 hours ago
- Perth Now
Billy Joel's wife was 'unimpressed' by his musical talents
Billy Joel's wife was "very unimpressed with the whole Billy Joel thing" when they first met. The 76-year-old star tried to woo Alexis, 43, with his musical talents during the early days of their romance, but she was completely unimpressed by his efforts. In the new HBO documentary series Billy Joel: And So It Goes, he explains: "I remember the first time I met Alexis, we went to my house, and I wanted to play the piano for her. It's a form of communication for me." Billy assumed that Alexis would be wowed by his award-winning talents. However, she was unmoved when he played the piano for her. Billy - who married Alexis in 2015 - said: "I'm playing that and she's completely unimpressed with it, totally. She couldn't care less what I'm playing and I'm thinking, 'Oh OK, this isn't working.' "She was very unimpressed with the whole Billy Joel thing, which impressed me. Because I thought, 'OK, maybe she's just here because she likes me, not the Billy Joel guy.'" The music star - who has daughters Della, nine, and Remy, seven, with Alexis - made a conscious effort to develop their relationship away from the spotlight. He explained: "We had a couple years together before we had kids and he had completely stopped doing shows. We travelled everywhere. We did a motorcycle trip from Maine down to Long Island, we were on boats 24/7. We were in Europe. We had so much fun." Meanwhile, Billy recently admitted that he was hesitant about committing to his HBO documentary. The music icon revealed that he was reluctant to reflect on some of the "stupid stuff" he's done in the past. He told People: "I've resisted this kind of thing for so long. I'm sick of talking about myself. Some of the stupid stuff I did, that's painful to talk about. (But) they asked me for some thematic guidance. I said, 'Just tell the truth.'" Billy initially just wanted to get the documentary "over with" because he doesn't enjoy talking about himself. The Uptown Girl hitmaker said: "My goal was to get it over with. "When I do interviews, people just ask you about yourself and you get a little self-conscious about it eventually. It's almost embarrassing. "When you're talking about your personal life detached from the material ... I suppose there's a little bit of wariness involved."


Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Billy Joel felt 'hurt' by Sir Elton John's rehab comments
Billy Joel felt "really hurt" after Sir Elton John encouraged him to go to rehab. The 76-year-old star admits that some "bad blood" developed between himself and Elton, after the Your Song hitmaker publicly suggested that Billy needed to spend some time in rehab. In the HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, he says: "Elton had made a comment that he thought I needed real rehab. He chalked it up to, 'Oh, he's a drunk.' And that really hurt me. "I said wait a minute? Don't you know me better than that? And there was bad blood for a little while. There was a dovetailing of things that happened during that time." Billy recalled feeling at "rock bottom" when he read Elton's comments. He said: "I was disillusioned with what I thought it was all supposed to mean. It was like all the signs were pointing to me: enough. And I wrote this letter to the band. 'I don't want to do this anymore. I'm gonna stop.'" Elton made the comments to Rolling Stone magazine back in 2011, shortly after they toured together. Elton explained at the time that they had "so many cancelled tours because of illnesses and various other things, alcoholism". The chart-topping star - who also struggled with addiction in the 70s and 80s - added: "He's going to hate me for this, but every time he goes to rehab they've been light ... I love you Billy, and this is tough love." Billy actually spent time in rehab in 2005, and he previously acknowledged that addiction has created "problems" in his life. The singer stopped drinking altogether in 2021, and he insisted that it doesn't bring any value to his life. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times newspaper in 2023, Billy shared: "I stopped a couple of years ago. It wasn't a big Alcoholics Anonymous kick. I just got a point where I'd had enough. "I didn't enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed. I don't need it now."