Celebrity

The horrors of the ‘Upskirt Decade’

25 November 2023 9:00 am

The century began as a monstrous time to be famous and female – epitomised by the Tulsa judge who, in 2006, seemed to rule that no woman had a right to privacy in public

Who’s to blame if Britney Spears has been ‘devoured’ by celebrity?

11 December 2021 9:00 am

All the questions around Britney Spears can be condensed into this one: who should we blame? For a long time,…

The bogus business of stigma-busting

10 July 2021 9:00 am

Our society is bristling with social stigmas, we’re told, even in the progressive West, even in London. Life is so…

The problem with ‘role models’

24 April 2021 9:00 am

Who needs role models anyway?

Why I’m glad to see the back of Call My Agent!

3 April 2021 9:00 am

For the past few weeks I have been binge-watching the Netflix series Call My Agent! (or Dix pour cent, as…

Alexandra Shulman’s unlikely career in fashion journalism should have made a Hollywood movie

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

Alexandra Shulman says that she had ‘no desire to write an autobiography’ — so instead she has written about her…

Going to the wall: ‘Jane Avril’, 1899, by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Lautrec often made the stars in his posters look appalling – but they kept coming back

20 October 2018 9:00 am

You don’t need to be much of a psychologist to understand the trajectory of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Born to aristocratic…

Joan Collins: The celebrity trend I just can’t stand

21 May 2016 9:00 am

Not only are today’s young girls having to work hard on their abs, butts and glutes, now the likes of…

Lizzie Bennet is catapulted to America

21 May 2016 9:00 am

Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Eligible is a page-turning romantic comedy which is very funny and entirely ridiculous: each of the short…

‘Wanna come to Prince’s house?’

30 April 2016 9:00 am

The untold story

The new Wheeler’s is the worst thing Marco Pierre White has ever done

19 March 2016 9:00 am

Wheeler’s is such a dreadful restaurant that I wonder if Marco Pierre White even knows his name is on it.…

Dear Mary: my niece hasn’t returned the small sum I lent her

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Q. My niece, who came to stay with me in the country for the weekend, arrived without cash and asked…

Le Caprice is trying to bring back the 1980s (unsuccessfully)

6 February 2016 9:00 am

Le Caprice is a monochrome patch of the 1980s behind the Ritz Hotel, in the part of St James’s that…

Barry Humphries’s diary: My war with ‘Wow!’

29 October 2015 9:00 am

I’m counting ‘Wows!’ Suddenly everyone is using this irritating expletive expressing incredulity, amazement and nothing at all. I’ve heard it…

John Lennon’s desert island luxury

24 October 2015 9:00 am

Beatlebone is an account of a journey, a psychedelic odyssey, its protagonist — at times its narrator — John Lennon,…

Breast-feeding isn't always best

29 August 2015 9:00 am

New mothers who can’t keep to the breast-feeding orthodoxy face needless misery and shame

Rachel Johnson’s diary: Why I told my book party I was coming out as a lesbian

27 June 2015 9:00 am

My husband says I only write books in order to have a launch party. Not so. I also write books…

Dear Mary: My husband has shaved his head for a newspaper feature

27 June 2015 9:00 am

Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…

The new Ivy doesn’t have the old magic (if there ever was any)

27 June 2015 9:00 am

The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is…

By, with, of and for Kim Kardashian — keeping up with Kulture

30 May 2015 9:00 am

The almond eyes that rise towards their outer edges. The cheekbones that curve down to the corners of those upholstered…

Whose hair are you buying?

25 April 2015 9:00 am

British people buy £43 million worth of human hair a year. So who’s selling?

‘About time too!’: Joan Collins curtseys to Prince Charles

25 April 2015 9:00 am

The day of my investiture at Buckingham Palace dawned bringing freezing rain and fierce winds, which lashed at the windows…

David Starkey’s diary: Why don’t we celebrate the triumphs of private dentistry?

18 April 2015 9:00 am

To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I…

My moment of mortification with Saint Joan Collins

14 February 2015 9:00 am

My time with Joan Collins was wonderful – except for one mortifying moment

Dear Mary solves problems for Jim Broadbent, N.M. Gwynne, Jesse Norman and others

13 December 2014 9:00 am

Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her…