Latest news with #Jada
Malay Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
‘Why should we avoid it?': Jet Li reflects on death after daughter's mental health struggle
BEIJING, July 19 — Jet Li has spoken publicly for the first time about a painful chapter in his family life — his daughter Jada's mental health crisis at age 19. In an interview with Beijing-based publication Sanlian Lifeweek published on July 10, the 62-year-old action star revealed that Jada, now 22, once struggled with suicidal thoughts. When she eventually pulled through, father and daughter sat down for an honest, soul-baring conversation about death and what comes after. 'We had an honest conversation, because [death] is inevitable. Why should we avoid it? We had a good conversation about it,' he said. Li said many people live in fear of death or treat it as taboo — something he's determined to face head-on with his loved ones. The devout Buddhist added that he believes acknowledging the inevitability of death helps us live more meaningfully. 'A lot of people live with regrets and a life where they are not honest in facing situations,' he reportedly told Sanlian Lifeweek. 'Because we are born, we will inevitably die. But we often said that death is not auspicious and shouldn't be talked about.' Rather than dwell on fear, Li said he chooses to focus on how he lives. 'Knowing that I will die, should I still worry about it every day till the day it happened, or knowing that it would happen someday, I should treasure the way I live every day? I think living well every day is more important,' he reportedly said. The actor, who rose to fame in classics like Shaolin Temple and Fearless, also opened up about how he handles loss. When asked if he feels 'sad and regretful' over the death of a friend or mentor, his response was striking. 'Why should we feel sad and regretful? I think this is something that only avatars in games would feel,' he replied. Li added that while others might see his approach as cold, he believes in accepting death rather than ritualising grief. 'For people around me who have died, those who know me would know that I wouldn't attend their funeral,' he reportedly said. 'There are others who said that I am heartless and too unpretentious, and I would tell them there's no one whose kin doesn't die.' *If you are lonely, distressed, or having negative thoughts, Befrienders offers free and confidential support 24 hours a day. A full list of Befrienders contact numbers and state operating hours is available here: There are also free hotlines for young people. Talian Kasih at 15999 (24/7); and Talian BuddyBear at 1800-18-2327(BEAR)(daily 12pm-12am). Contact Befrienders KL at 03-7627 2929, or 04-2910 100 in Penang, or 05-2380 485 in Ipoh, or 088-335 793 in Kota Kinabalu. Those suffering from problems can reach out to: Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392); Talian Kasih (15999 or WhatsApp 019-261 5999); Jakim's Family, Social and Community care centre (WhatsApp 0111-959 8214); and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03-7627 2929 or visit for a full list of numbers and operating hours).
Malay Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
‘Why should we avoid it?': Jet Li gets candid about death after daughter's mental health struggle
BEIJING, July 19 — Jet Li has spoken publicly for the first time about a painful chapter in his family life — his daughter Jada's mental health crisis at age 19. In an interview with Beijing-based publication Sanlian Lifeweek published on July 10, the 62-year-old action star revealed that Jada, now 22, once struggled with suicidal thoughts. When she eventually pulled through, father and daughter sat down for an honest, soul-baring conversation about death and what comes after. 'We had an honest conversation, because [death] is inevitable. Why should we avoid it? We had a good conversation about it,' he said. Li said many people live in fear of death or treat it as taboo — something he's determined to face head-on with his loved ones. The devout Buddhist added that he believes acknowledging the inevitability of death helps us live more meaningfully. 'A lot of people live with regrets and a life where they are not honest in facing situations,' he reportedly told Sanlian Lifeweek. 'Because we are born, we will inevitably die. But we often said that death is not auspicious and shouldn't be talked about.' Rather than dwell on fear, Li said he chooses to focus on how he lives. 'Knowing that I will die, should I still worry about it every day till the day it happened, or knowing that it would happen someday, I should treasure the way I live every day? I think living well every day is more important,' he reportedly said. The actor, who rose to fame in classics like Shaolin Temple and Fearless, also opened up about how he handles loss. When asked if he feels 'sad and regretful' over the death of a friend or mentor, his response was striking. 'Why should we feel sad and regretful? I think this is something that only avatars in games would feel,' he replied. Li added that while others might see his approach as cold, he believes in accepting death rather than ritualising grief. 'For people around me who have died, those who know me would know that I wouldn't attend their funeral,' he reportedly said. 'There are others who said that I am heartless and too unpretentious, and I would tell them there's no one whose kin doesn't die.' *If you are lonely, distressed, or having negative thoughts, Befrienders offers free and confidential support 24 hours a day. A full list of Befrienders contact numbers and state operating hours is available here: There are also free hotlines for young people. Talian Kasih at 15999 (24/7); and Talian BuddyBear at 1800-18-2327(BEAR)(daily 12pm-12am). Contact Befrienders KL at 03-7627 2929, or 04-2910 100 in Penang, or 05-2380 485 in Ipoh, or 088-335 793 in Kota Kinabalu. Those suffering from problems can reach out to: Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392); Talian Kasih (15999 or WhatsApp 019-261 5999); Jakim's Family, Social and Community care centre (WhatsApp 0111-959 8214); and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03-7627 2929 or visit for a full list of numbers and operating hours).
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Days of Our Lives Recap: Jada Questions Chanel About EJ's Shooting
Days of Our Lives Recap: Jada Questions Chanel About EJ's Shooting originally appeared on Daytime Confidential. On today's Days of Our Lives recap: DiMera Mansion – Living Room: Belle arrives to see EJ with the memory card but says what's on it doesn't fully clear Johnny. They watch the footage from the memory card and EJ pretends to be surprised. He says he doesn't remember any of it but thinks the evidence is damning. Belle says Jada is questioning her right that very minute. EJ says he would do anything to save Johnny but not this way. He worries what would happen to his son's marriage if it were proven his wife tried to murder his father. They take a seat as Belle remembers how angry Chanel was when the adoption fell through. EJ says desperate people commit desperate acts. Salem PD – Jada's Office: Paulina can't believe Chanel threatened EJ's life. Jada says she has no choice but to bring Chanel in for questioning. Paulina asks what else is on the video and Jada says what she saw is where it cuts off. Paulina notes there was no gun and knows Chanel couldn't ever shoot EJ. She goes on to explain her daughter was with her that night, at least most of it. Jada says for that reason and many more she has to pull Chanel in. Paulina asks if she can call Chanel and then promises to step back and Jada agrees. Salem PD – Lobby: Johnny and Chanel embrace when she tells him about the video from the night of the shooting. She says she doesn't remember saying anything Jada says she did. Paulina says she saw the video and it is what it is. That being said, she knows Chanel didn't shoot EJ. Just then, Jada walks out and Johnny demands to see the video but she declines. Horton Square: Johnny and Chanel discuss EJ defending her. He thinks no jury would think a victim of a crime would defend someone who they believe is guilty. Johnny needs to get back to work and they agree to meet up later. Just then, Chanel gets a call from her mother saying she needs her to come down to the station and to bring Johnny with her. Kiriakis Mansion: Maggie fields a call from Melissa. She tells Sarah she had a work emergency and will be able to go on their trip to Bermuda (It would be great to see Melissa!). Sarah suggests they plan a trip with all the girls. Maggie agrees but also thinks she and Sarah should take the trip she had planned with Melissa. Sarah is thrilled about the idea but says she can't take Victoria out of the country without clearing it with Xander. Xander returns and says the nanny is packing up Victoria's things. Maggie tells him to stop escalating the situation. She laughs when he refers to himself as the most stable parent who needs to take the lead. Further, Sarah will regret fighting him. Titan/DiMera: Xander can't believe Philip suggested he quit. They both agree they don't like their current arrangement and have to figure out to play the hand they've been dealt. Philip decides it's a good time to bring up how differently Victor treated them and actually refers to his brother as just another bastard. Xander is rightfully upset and tells his brother to get out. Just then, Sarah arrives. Philip tries to smooth out the conversation she heard and quickly makes his exit. Sarah asks Xander about possibly taking Victoria on the trip with Maggie, but he immediately shuts it down. She explains they will only be gone for a week and he's being unreasonable. Xander reminds Sarah that Maggie has enough resources to allow her, and Victoria disappear forever. Sarah thinks he's being ridiculous, but Xander says he'll have her arrested if she goes. Sarah says she hates him with every fiber of her being. With that she exits and Xander quickly follows. Salem PD - Lobby: Johnny and Chanel arrive. Paulina says Jada wants to question her but shouldn't do so without a lawyer present. The couple wonder what's going on and Chanel agrees to answer questions without a lawyer present (why?). With that, she exits with Jada. Paulina tells Johnny about the footage from the memory card and how bad it looks. Johnny says there's no way Chanel would ever shoot his father. He wants to go into the interrogation room and says he will confess if it means saving Chanel. She stops him and Johnny says he would do anything to save Chanel even though he didn't shoot his father. For the first time, Paulina seems to believe what he is saying but he can't let him confess to a crime he didn't commit. Johnny says they need to find out who actually pulled the trigger for everyone's sake. Salem PD – Interrogation Room: Jada tells Chanel about the video from the memory stick. She says she always admitted she spoke with EJ that night and admits it was contentious. Jada says it was more than contentious as Chanel threatened EJ's life. She knows she left the mansion afterwards but asks if she later returned and made good on her threat. Chanel can't believe Jada thinks she would shoot anyone. Jada understands her shock but says she's talking to her as the police commissioner and not her friend. Chanel says she never went back to EJ's house and certainly didn't shoot him. Jada recounts Chanel's words from the memory stick and she admits she was angry with EJ because of the suffering he caused Johnny and his role in them losing their baby. However, she doesn't remember saying those words. Even if she did, she didn't follow through. She freaks out thinking they are going to arrest her. Jada says Chanel isn't being arrested but it does move her up the suspect list. Chanel can't believe she will once again be accused of a crime she didn't commit. Jada promises she will be treated fairly but advises her to talk to Justin soon. With that, Chanel exits. Brady Pub: Sarah sits down at Philip's table and says she needs his help to take down her husband. Philip wonders how and Sarah says he needs to admit Xander attacked him. Philip says he didn't, but Sarah still doesn't believe him. Sarah says she can talk to her mother and Stephanie and get them to swear they will never tell anyone about his and Vivian's fraud. She wonders if Philip will agree to help her if she can guarantee the fraud won't be exposed. Sarah tempts him more by saying, if Xander goes down, he would be able to run Titan/DiMera all by himself. Kiriakis Mansion: A furious Xander arrives and accuses Maggie of trying to help Sarah run off with Victoria. He wants to take Victoria right then and there, but Maggie wants him to come to his senses. She explains about what happened with Melissa, but Xander doesn't believe her. He goes upstairs to collect his daughter as Maggie grabs her phone to make a call. Days of Our Lives Recap: EJ Sets Up Chanel Endings Maggie tells Xander that Victor would be rolling over in his grave if he knew his son was trying to rip his granddaughter out of the mansion. Xander gets all kinds of disrespectful and Maggie realizes he's feeling unloved and unwanted. She begs him not to return to who he used to be – the man who would rip Victoria from her mother's arms. Xander leans in and says he is the monster his father made. She says she's calling the police but Xander says he has just as much right to his daughter as Sarah. Belle tells EJ she needs to head back to work. He does his best to distract her with a trip upstairs to the bedroom. She giggles and the two kiss and head upstairs. Philip is tempted by Sarah's plan but thinks there are too many folks who could back out. Sarah doubles down saying she can make the plan work, and he deserves justice. All he has to do is tell the truth. Philip takes a breath and says he can't help her. Xander, Chanel and Paulina arrive in Horton Square and discuss the case. Just then, Paulina gets a text from Justin saying he's in court and will check his schedule to see if he can represent Chanel. Sarah arrives home to find a distraught Maggie who tells her Xander took Victoria. Keep checking back for the latest Days of Our Lives recaps! This story was originally reported by Daytime Confidential on Jul 12, 2025, where it first appeared.
The Herald Scotland
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
For a Scottish novelist, I have woefully underserved Scotland at times
'I'd been spending a bit of time back in Glasgow – I want to move back actually, but I can't sell my wife on the weather! – and just walking about the West End it struck me that I'd forgotten how close to leafy Hyndland Partick is. Then you get into Whiteinch and some of those rougher areas. So I started this idea of these two guys who meet. I had the idea they would meet in front of the maternity ward on the morning they both become dads and wind up getting into involved in each other's lives in surprising ways.' The men are Dan and Jada. Decades earlier and fresh out of Glasgow University, Dan sold a cop show idea to BBC Scotland – think Morse crossed with Local Hero and a whiff of Taggart – and is now very wealthy as a result. West End town-house? Check. Tesla? Check. Read more The long-running series is titled McCallister and has rooted itself in the TV schedules and the national psyche. It's a fixture. But it's safe and Dan is bored and disillusioned and now plans to end it. Five years of expensive IVF have paid off, though, and on the morning we meet him he and his wife Grace are celebrating the birth of a baby boy they will christen Tom. Cut to Jada. He lives on the 10th floor of a 1960s tower block in Partick and has fathered six children by six women over the past couple of decades, the oldest now in her 20s. Nicola, his current girlfriend, is only 19, and may or may not know about Jada's amorous adventures with her mother back in the day. His new baby is called Jayden. Or it might be Cayden. Whatever. Jada's vibe is head-to-toe sports leisure with box fresh trainers. When it isn't in the pawnshop, he likes to show off his TAG Heuer watch too. His gambling debts are heavy and spread around the city with men whose nicknames are as fierce as their reputations, and servicing them relies on selling heavily-cut drugs to mugs in car parks. Things look up, however, when a dodgy contact at Prestwick Airport approaches him with a scheme for some heavy duty larceny. Dan drinks in the Ubiquitous Chip, Jada's local is known as The Flaps. Don't ask. And so, after a meeting outside the maternity ward where Dan is coming to terms with the spiritual elation which is the onset of fatherhood and Jada is grabbing a sly smoke, their story begins. Along the way there are scrapes, reversals of fortune, tragedies – to say too much would give away the plot – and ultimately redemption of sorts, though in unlikely forms. There's also a tasty side serving of crime, drugs, and Loyalist paramilitaries from Belfast whose unlikely acronym is FUD. And if you want it to have a soundtrack, pick the ear-pounding house music of the early 1990s raves where Jada's life as a wheeler dealer began. Push the music metaphor further and you can even view The Fathers as a mash-up of The Blue Nile (Dan) and Gerry Cinnamon (Jada, obviously). The Fathers is published this week (Image: free) 'I hate the word journey, but they both end up in very different places to where they started from,' says Niven. And how. The novel is laugh out loud funny at points but its serious intentions are many. Inequality, criminality, substance abuse, class, social and economic horizons and even housing are themes which linger under the surface, alongside the numbing, dizzying forces unleashed by grief. Niven broaches all these things nimbly, though. 'I'm always with Nabokov in that I think your primary obligation is to entertain and delight the reader,' he says. 'They don't come to the novel dripping with big heavy ideas about class and social commentary. If a book's properly alive, these things come out of it, they emerge as sort of tributaries. So I guess I didn't want either Dan or Jada to be caricatures or cliches.' Rare for Niven, The Fathers is also a novel set almost entirely in Scotland, his first since The Amateurs in 2009. 'I really felt it was time to write a book set back home again,' he says. 'For a Scottish novelist, I have woefully underserved Scotland at points.' Less rare, it's a work which deals well the subject of men – and tellingly the cover bears a testimonial to that effect from Caitlin Moran, author of her own best-selling book on the species. Off the page, it's a subject Niven has given much thought too. And while he isn't alone in the field of dissecting the male psyche – Irvine Welsh's latest Trainspotting novel, Men In Love, is digging into the same subject, and both Graeme Armstrong's The Young Team and Andrew O'Hagan's Mayflies deal with male relationships – it's not lost on him that novels by men about men feel vanishingly rare, either in the best-seller lists or even on the shelves of bookshops. Does he think that's a problem? 'It is real and it's difficult,' he replies. 'I think it's well established that women buy a lot more fiction than men do, and I think the reasons for that is that when you go down to the younger generation you're losing a lot of the guys to the internet, to online life, to gaming, to whatever. For whatever reason they're not reading fiction any more. And it becomes difficult as a male novelist. You sometimes feel you're writing for market that's vanishing beneath your feet, that's getting smaller and smaller. I think if you do what I do and you write non-genre, non-literary fiction, it's a difficult space.' Read more He recalls the impact of his debut novel, 2008's Britpop-era set Kill Your Friends. 'I'd meet a lot of parents here and there who would say: 'Thank you, yours is the first novel I've seen my teenage son read ever.' And I don't think the parents cared that it was a somewhat gleefully nasty novel. The fact that they were reading a novel at all was incredible to them.' That's important, he thinks, because the act of reading means entering somebody else's head. Seeing the world through their eyes. Possibly even adjusting a world-view as a result. 'It's especially true in a first person novel where you've been asked to subsume yourself in to someone else's skin. It does teach you empathy. Without getting too grand about it, when those things go missing you're on the road the kind of world we saw in Adolescence. That kind of anchor-less, lack of empathy existence.' Save that, though, for a novel about sons. In the here and now, it's on the subject of dads – and, happily, Glasgow – that John Niven shines his smart, funny, laser-focussed prose. The Fathers is published on July 17 (Canongate, £18.99). John Niven is appearing at the Drygate Bar, Glasgow on July 14, Pilrig St Paul's Church, Edinburgh on July 15 and at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on August 13
Scotsman
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Book reviews: No One Would Do What The Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah
Sophie Hannah (Picture:) Two offerings by Sophie Hannah and John Niven may share a section in the bookshop – but they couldn't be more different, writes Stuart Kelly. One is poetic and the other, well, isn't Sign up to our Scotsman Money newsletter, covering all you need to know to help manage your money. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, 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... Although these novels will probably be shelved in the same section of bookshops, I would struggle to imagine two less similar titles. The conceit of Niven's novel is two very different men meeting in a maternity ward. Dan is a TV writer whose crime series, 'McAllister' is about to reach its finale. Jada is a bam / radge / keelie whose crime career may be about to take off. Dan and Grace have been through as many rounds of IVF as Jada already has children (his reckoning is approximate). Do not expect anything like the documentary series 'Up' or the more recent 'Child of our Time'; this not a sensitive exploration of nature versus nurture. The indices of social class are done in the crudest terms. Grace and Dan's Christmas party has brioche, arancini and prosciutto; Jada and Nicola stretch to Iceland samosas, cocktail sausages and Red Bull, but plenty of drugs. Dan is oversensitive – fussing over room temperatures and treated Grace to sriracha salmon. Jada, when asked by Nicola about what the NHS pamphlet refers to as 'returning to intimacy' says 'Don't worry, doll. No ma first rodeo. Jist means yer dung funnel's gaunae take a pounding fur a wee while'. Do the 'underclass' think and behave like that? I do not know, but I do know that's what the middle class think they do. At least Grace and Dan are almost as insufferable and clichéd; especially with Dan's penchant for condescendingly collecting 'ned patter in the same way some people collected wine or art'. Notably, this is to share with his friends. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad One has to be cautious. There is a twist, but it is very much a twist and not the classical peripeteia, a foreshadowed change of fortune. It instigates certain plot developments, and actually might have made a brief, Carver-esque short story, particularly as one characters obsesses in a kind of 'for a want of a nail' manner. The final denouement, eleven pages set eighteen months later, is utterly unearned compensatory sentimentality. There is not even an attempt to show emotional development, moral change, lessons learned; just a plonked fait accompli. John Niven (Picture:) One aspect of the novel involves the fictional terrorist 'Free Ulster Division', which seems an exceptionally long set up for the punchline 'No one - no one - makes a c*** of the FUD'. Perhaps more significant is the italics and capitals. It's a novel full of them, which always strikes me as slapdash and hasty: are readers so dim as to need volume control on lines such as 'DON'T TALK P*SH! OOTSIDE? F**KING JANUARY FUR F**K SAKE'. The shadow of Big Irvine still looms ominously over the contemporary Scottish novel, alas. If Niven's work almost resembles a kind of 'art brut' splurge, it is immediately obvious that Sophie Hannah is also a poet; but not because of any aureate ornamentation or pellucid diction. Her crime novels are exemplars of craft and cunning, both in her eerie psychological Waterhouse and Zailer novels and the delightful authorised new Hercule Poirot stories. This standalone novel is set in Swaffham Tilney, a close cousin of Christie's St Mary Mead. Appropriately enough the village has an Agatha Christie reading group, undergoing a minor civil war over whether Christie's romance novels written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott ought to be eligible. It is only one of the novel's numerous clues that whether there is a crime hidden in plain sight in Westmacott's 'The Rose and the Yew Tree' is a clear nudge to the reader. It is curious that there are not more novels which present themselves explicitly as puzzles for the reader to decipher. I rather liked 'Strange Pictures' and 'Strange Houses' by the mysterious 'Uketsu' and there is nothing quite like 'Cain's Jawbone' by 'Torquemada' aka Edward Powys Mathers (which enjoyed an unlikely lockdown renaissance). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Hannah's elaborate novel begins with the disordered manuscript of the novel ('by me') delivered to a policeman. It purports to tell the true story of the feud between the Lambert and Gavey families. We learn immediately this cause célèbre was about Lesley Gavey attempting to have the Lambert's dog, Champ Cuthbert Lambert, to give him his full name, put down after he bit her daughter Tess. Almost as an aside, three people died. This game of misdirection and misinterpretation would be a stale thing were it not for the anarchic, surreal humour. The mother, Sally Lambert, is also insufferable, but her ghastliness is a different genre to Niven's work. Sally is the epitome of cringe, from her life-mission of 'enjollification' to anthropomorphising not just pets but houses. The revelation of the author of the manuscript, who flagrantly teases their identity throughout, is the most outrageous and absurd of conceits, especially so since once revealed, it explains nothing, as it simply cannot be true. It is another layer of obfuscation and ventriloquism. The unreliable narrator has not been quite as much fun in ages. It is a running commentary on itself – I especially liked the analysis of The Absurdity Impediment (see title). And it can be solved.
