logo
Viewers disgusted by 'gross' age-gap dating series coming to Netflix

Viewers disgusted by 'gross' age-gap dating series coming to Netflix

Daily Mail​6 days ago
Netflix and former Bachelor star Nick Viall are being slammed by viewers over a 'gross' dating series about age-gap relationships.
Age of Attraction, which was announced by the streaming giant this week, promises to match singles with their soulmates, regardless of age.
It will be hosted by Viall, 44, and his wife Natalie Joy, 26, who is 18 years his junior.
'Age is thrown out the window when singles search for their soulmates. Is love truly ageless, or will the years come between them?' Netflix said in a brief statement.
While little else is known about the series, the participants range from age 22 to 59.
The eight-episode first season was already filmed in Canada, but it won't air until next year.
A lot of viewers have already expressed their displeasure with the controversial series.
'They can't seriously have thought this would be a good idea,' commented one.
'Nick Viall creating a dating show centered around age gap relationships… this man is not right in the head,'wrote another.
A third commented, 'We got "looks don't matter" with love is blind. Now we're getting "age doesn't matter". What's next?'
Age of Attraction also received a negative reaction on Reddit, with one user writing, 'I love that the youngest age is 22, older than Natalie was when they started dating.'
A second said, 'I hate this. But… I wonder if they will show older women with younger men, or just continue to promote lecherous older men.'
Despite now being married with a child, Nick and Natalie's relationship has been criticized by fans for years due to their almost two-decade age gap.
It's unclear exactly how old Natalie was when they started dating, with various estimates putting her age at anywhere from 19 to 21.
A lot of viewers have already expressed their displeasure with the controversial series
During an appearance on The Squeeze podcast in 2023, Nick said that he turned Natalie down 'many times' before they got together due to her age.
'The age for me was something I was self conscious about,' he admitted.
Natalie also said that she's been trolled online relentlessly due to the age disparity.
'It's definitely weird to have so many people give you their opinions,' she said.
'DMs of mean comments about [how] I'm a "child bride". Just terrible, terrible things people would call me,' she continued.
'I was like, I am going to spend the rest of my life with this man, and I knew it and he didn't, so I was like, I'm gonna hang on because he'll come around.'
Nick and Natalie married on April 27, 2024, after dating for four years.
They started dating in July 2020, after she slid into her direct messages on Instagram.
'I think DMs are a great place to meet people. My current girlfriend slid in my DMs. Real clever, it said, "You're unreal." I guess it was funny. I was more curious why I was unreal,' he told E! News in 2022.
The couple went Instagram official in January 2021, with the lovebirds making the red carpet debut four months later.
The duo got engaged in January 2023 and announced she was pregnant with their first child in August 2023.
Their daughter River Rose was born on February 2, 2024.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The BBC's Unforgivable asks if we can ever forgive a child sex offender
The BBC's Unforgivable asks if we can ever forgive a child sex offender

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

The BBC's Unforgivable asks if we can ever forgive a child sex offender

Warning: contains spoilers It must be galling for the BBC to be reminded that it didn't make Adolescence. Four months post-release and it's still creating news: as Netflix's most watched show of the year with 145 million views, or picking up 13 Emmy nominations. The closest thing the BBC can offer is Unforgivable (BBC Two), a new one-off drama from Jimmy McGovern that mines a similar seam of social realism, and is also about a family coming to terms with one of them committing a terrible crime. As with all of McGovern's work, it is well written and impeccably acted. Those are the two elements on which Unforgivable needs to sell itself, because nobody thinks, 'A drama about a man who sexually abused his nephew? Must sit down to watch that.' Maybe that's why it's buried on BBC2 on a Thursday night. Also, there isn't much of a plot. It's more a study of a family torn apart. They are related both to the abuser and the victim, and how do they navigate that? For Anna (Anna Friel), it's straightforward. Her brother abused her son. She will never forgive him. She has been left to pick up the pieces: her boy, Tom (Austin Haynes) has stopped speaking since the abuse, save for 'yes' and 'no'. Anna, a single mum, has to homeschool him while also trying to hold down a job on the supermarket tills. Her mum has just died, so she is grieving and also supporting her newly-widowed dad (David Threlfall). It's a lot. Friel gives the best performance of her career, managing to make her lines sound improvised even though they're not. 'I'm a lousy mother who's doing the best I can,' she tells her kids. The real focus, though, is on the perpetrator. Joe (Bobby Schofield) is released from prison near the start of the drama. He moves to a hostel run by an ex-nun, played with unnerving stillness by Anna Maxwell Martin. He hates himself, but feels more guilty about the pain he caused his mother than the damage he did to Tom. It emerges, via therapy, that Joe was abused himself by a predatory football coach. This complicates things. Joe is both the abuser and the abused. That is true in many real-life cases, although a fellow victim of the coach points out that he was abused too but didn't turn out to be a 'nonce'. It's not a given. It's an unpalatable truth that the vast majority of children who are abused have been preyed upon by someone they know, many of them family members. McGovern isn't afraid to go there, but he also goes further by asking us if we can feel compassion for Joe. At times, this seems too big an ask, even if Schofield is impressive in scenes where the tears flow. Tom, by contrast, is a mute presence; we understand that this is a response to trauma – even if his mum, oddly, asks if he's doing it for attention or a bet – but rendering him voiceless feels unfair. Perhaps that's deliberate. Anna complains bitterly that she has been unable to get child mental health support for Tom, because the system is overloaded, yet Joe has therapy on tap. The ending is too neat, as if McGovern was told he needed to wrap it up on a positive note. Until that point, though, it's a thought-provoking piece on a subject that most writers would avoid.

Stranger Things re-review: my verdict on episode 1 and 2
Stranger Things re-review: my verdict on episode 1 and 2

Scotsman

time2 hours ago

  • Scotsman

Stranger Things re-review: my verdict on episode 1 and 2

Join me in taking a trip back to Hawkins, Indiana as we rewatch Stranger Things from the start 📺 Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Stranger Things will conclude later in 2025. Before the final trips to Hawkins, let's go back to the beginning. Join me on a full week-by-week rewatch of Stranger Things. It is hard to believe but in a little over five months time, Stranger Things will be finishing up for good. Netflix's signature show and calling card has recently celebrated nine years since its debut - if you can believe it. In the near decade since it first burst onto our screens, The Duffer Brothers' 80s-themed sci-fi/horror adventure has ballooned into the kind of blockbuster you only see once, or maybe twice, a decade. The fifth and final season is bound to be an event unlike any in the history of Netflix. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But since more than three years have passed since the monster-length fourth season finale was released, you might (like me) be considering rewatching the show ahead of its conclusion. After all, you may want to jog your memory and relive the biggest moments once more. So I decided to put together a Stranger Things re-watch schedule, covering the months between now and the first part of season five on November 26 (in the UK). I will be watching and re-reviewing two episodes every Thursday starting today (July 24), and you can join me. For the first week of our Stranger Things rewatch club, we are going all the way back to the beginning. Let's take a look at the first two episodes of series one - que the theme music. Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Stranger Things | Curtis Baker/Netflix Synopsis: On his way home from a friend's house, young Will sees something terrifying. Nearby, a sinister secret lurks in the depths of a government lab. It might be hard to imagine, given what Stranger Things has become, but the show initially arrived as just another 80s-inspired show back in the summer of 2016. Yet going back to the first episode, it is no surprise that it quickly became an absolute word-of-mouth juggernaut. Right from the opening sequence, it has an air of extreme confidence and trust in its audience. Perhaps it is a lack of budget, but the restraint (something that can't be said for future seasons) is really impressive. The opening sequence sets the tone so completely in just a few moments - an unnamed scientist running for his life, scared of something the audience can't see, before being grabbed by whatever was hunting him. As a scene, it is tense and spooky, but most importantly it leaves you desperate to know more. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Truth be told, the whole opening episode is like that. It quickly gets its hooks into you in a way that not all pilots do. I remember back when most American shows had 22 episodes a season, the rule of thumb would be to give a show at least three episodes before deciding whether to continue or stop. Stranger Things does not need that. We get a real feel for the core characters in just this 50-minute episode - the dynamic of Will, Mike, Dustin and Lucas is beautifully set up through the opening D&D game. It drops enough breadcrumbs about the adult characters like Joyce, Hopper and the teens, to leave you wanting to find out more. And we start to get a sense of geography and place about Hawkins. The restraint shown in the opening sequence at the lab is maintained during the scene in which Will disappears. Like the chase with the scientist, we do not see whatever it is that is hunting him - just ominous sounds and flickering lights. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It really does capture the vibe of reading a Stephen King novel on a chilly autumn night. I found myself wishing I had a blanket I could pull up to my chin during this scene. The elements that would go on to define Stranger Things are already present in this first episode. Shady government agents, unnatural goings on, references to Dungeons and Dragons and of course that pumping synth score. I am very glad that I could instantly hit play on the next episode. Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street Barb and Nancy in Stranger Things ep 2 | Curtis Baker/Netflix Synopsis: Lucas, Mike and Dustin try to talk to the girl they found in the woods. Hopper questions an anxious Jouce about an unsettling phone call. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Oh Barb, we hardly knew ye! If you weren't around in the early days of Stranger Things, you will not believe me when I say that the fandom around this extremely minor character was enormous. People started hashtags about Barb and there was a campaign called 'Justice for Barb' - which ended up influencing a part of season two. Think pieces were penned about the character, and what better time to bring that up than in her big moment. After the confident opening episode, chapter two is dealt the task of actually making Stranger Things into a proper television series. Will has disappeared, the plot has begun, the vibe of the show has been established, but how will it look episode by episode? Fortunately, The Weirdo on Maple Street picks up the baton and really runs with it. The trio of Mike, Dustin and Lucas (as well as Will) were so well introduced in the first episode - it was time for the rest of the cast to be expanded upon. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This is the episode where Eleven starts to become a character and not just some piece in the mystery. Sure, there are lots of questions about her powers and who she is - but we get the feel of her as someone who is looking for a place to belong and a flashback to what she is running from. Eleven's blossoming friendship with Mike (in particular) and the slapstick-esque moments when the boys are trying to keep her hidden are a highlight. The injection of levity really does help the show to maintain that 80s Spielberg adventure vibe - to counter the horror. This plotline also starts to introduce some of the wider 'mythology' of the show. It is the first time we get a reference to the Upside Down - as El recognises Will in a photo and uses D&D figures to explain where he is and what took him: the demogorgon. David Harbour continues to add deeper shades to Hopper, who could be simply a clichéd tortured detective figure. You can feel his grief and his feeling of being lost. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But it is really Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) who get the most to do in this episode. A lot is asked of both characters - and if the actors didn't absolutely nail the assignment, it could sink the whole show. Winona Ryder manages to keep Joyce from slipping into being a one-note hysterical caricature. Charlie Heaton also imbues Jonathan with a deep sense of melancholy that counters the more 'creepy' stalker vibes that the character can give off - the whole sneakily taking pictures thing is not it, chief. Steve and Nancy are yet to really step up and become the fan favourites they inevitably will - and they feel like the weakest part at this point. Although Nancy's friendship with the soon-to-be-doomed Barb does work well in this episode, the actors manage to imbue it with a sense of history. You can feel Barb's sadness as she worries about losing Nancy now that she is entering the 'cool' circle. It is a human moment that perhaps goes a long way to explain why people latched onto it so quickly back in 2016. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This earlier moment foreshadows the end of the episode, when Barb is left alone outside by the pool after being dragged to a 'party' at Steve's by Nancy. Alone and dejected, she drips blood from a wound into the pool and is snatched away. It is another tantalising cliff-hanger and concludes an episode that is just as strong as the premiere. Stranger Things really does come out swinging and makes one seriously good first impression on viewers. Now I have to resist the urge to hit play next. See you all next week. If you love TV, check out our Screen Babble podcast to get the latest in TV and film.

Could With Love, Meghan Season Two Be Cancelled?
Could With Love, Meghan Season Two Be Cancelled?

Graziadaily

time2 hours ago

  • Graziadaily

Could With Love, Meghan Season Two Be Cancelled?

Reports have surfaced that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's multi-year Netflix deal is about to come to an end, leaving fans questioning whether season two of With Love, Meghan will ever see the light of day. The couple's five-year $100 million Netflix deal will reportedly not be renewed when it expires this September. An insider told The Sun , 'There's no animosity from either side. Things have just run their course.' But where does this leave season two of With Love, Meghan ? Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Netflix deal may have come to an end, but this doesn't mean With Love, Meghan will be written off. Season two has already been filmed and was scheduled to premiere this autumn. So far, there's been nothing to suggest that this latest update has led to any cancellation. The promotional content is still up and no announcements have been made. It appears season two of With Love, Meghan will still be streamed, as the final product of the Sussex's million-dollar deal. As for a third season, it's not known whether this is still a possibility. The end of their current contract doesn't rule out future seasons of the show, or stop Netflix doing any other projects with the couple. According to an insider, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos is still on very good terms with the Duchess, and isn't shutting off the option of a 'one-off project' further down the line. It's possible then that we will see Harry and Meghan return to the streaming platform – but from September, they'll no longer be under the current contract. In 2022, the former working royals made history with their bombshell Harry & Meghan – which is still Netflix's most-watched docuseries. However, the couple didn't reach the same heights with their following projects. Harry's Polo docuseries reportedly received just 500,000 views in the first half of 2025, while Heart of Invictus failed to break into the Netflix Top 10 charts in both America and Britain. Despite garnering mixed reviews, With Love, Meghan was a much-needed success. The show ranked in Netflix's top 10 global shows within a week of its release in March, amassing 2.6 million views. Shortly after the premiere, Netflix confirmed that season two had already been shot and would be hitting our screens later this year. Filmed in Montecito, California, the series follows Meghan as she invites famous friends and foodies into the kitchen – including Mindy Kaling and Alice Waters. In the Duchess's own words, 'The series is about doing what you can do, and doing it with love.' Season two is expected to be pretty similar to the format of season one, with Meghan once again serving as executive producer. However, we will be seeing a new set of famous faces. Model Chrissy Teigen and chef Jose Andres were the first names to be announced earlier this year, with Meghan saying, 'I've been fortunate to have the people that I want on the show… I've been really lucky. We have a great, great lineup.' Fans were surprised during season one that the stunning Californian mansion on the show didn't turn out to be Meghan and Harry's real home. Instead, it was a property rented specifically for filming. But while the house wasn't as authentically Sussex as some hoped, the family did play a part in the show. Prince Harry made a brief appearance, with the couple's children – Archie, six, and Lilibet, four – also having their moment. Opening up about filming the series, Meghan revealed, 'Archie did the [filming clapboard!] Sweet moments. They would also come with my husband and visit me on set. I loved that my children were able to watch me working and see the balance of that and understand what Mama does and is working to create and share. It was really special because up until then, they hadn't seen me at work.' Charlotte Roberts is a writer at Grazia UK. She spends her days covering everything celebrity, pop culture, and entertainment.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store