ENTERTAINMENT

Crazy Rich Asians beat expectations to take the top spot at the US box office on its opening weekend. The Warner Brothers film starring Constance Wu and Henry Golding is the first romantic comedy in three years to take the top spot. Since it opened five days ago, the film – which cost $30m (£23.5m) – has made an estimated ...

Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra have confirmed they are engaged after just a few months together. The Texan singer, formerly part of the Jonas Brothers, and the Bollywood superstar held a private engagement ceremony in Mumbai on Saturday. Both wore traditional Indian clothes. The pair’s engagement has been rumoured for about three weeks but they had not confirmed it until ...

Aretha Franklin‘s influence on music was profound during her lifetime, and since her death, pop stars have been opening up about the way the Queen of Soul shaped them as performers. On Thursday, Alicia Keys and Ariana Grande both performed renditions of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman during radio and TV interviews. Keys told Nicki Minaj while ...

Tributes are pouring in from the worlds of entertainment and politics for Aretha Franklin, the US singer known as the Queen of Soul, who has died at 76. Franklin performed at inauguration events for three US presidents and was a powerful advocate for the civil rights movement. “For more than 50 years, she stirred our souls,” Bill and Hillary Clinton ...

Aretha Franklin, the “queen of soul” known for hits like Respect and Think, has died in Detroit at the age of 76. The legendary singer was diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and announced last year she was retiring from music. Franklin had more than 20 US number ones over a career spanning seven decades. She gave her final performance last ...

Fourteen-year-old Briton Courtney Hadwin has made it through to the America’s Got Talent semi-finals. Courtney, from County Durham, wowed viewers with a storming performance of James Brown’s Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag in Wednesday’s live quarter-final. Fans include actress Sharon Stone, who tweeted: “You go girl!!” But some viewers questioned whether she’s more experienced than she appears after realising ...

The Godfather actress and jazz singer Morgana King has died aged 87. She played Carmela Corleone – the wife of Marlon Brando’s Don Vito – in the first two Godfather films, alongside a Grammy-nominated jazz career. King passed away from cancer on 22 March at her home in Palm Springs, California, the Riverside County coroner’s office confirmed. Her death had ...

Madonna turns 60 on Thursday. To celebrate, we’re taking a look back at her 35 years in the industry. Since Madonna’s eponymous debut album hit the shelves in 1983, she’s performed on 10 concert tours and sold more than 300 million records. This has earned her a spot in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling female recording artist of ...

Star Trek actor William Shatner has joined Star Wars’ Mark Hamill in calling for the late Carrie Fisher to be given a Hollywood Walk of Fame star. The actress – famed for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise – died in 2016. Anyone can nominate a star for the Walk of Fame, which costs $40,000 (£31,300). The Hollywood ...

Novelist Sir VS Naipaul, who won the Nobel Prize in literature, has died aged 85, his family have said. Sir Vidia, who was born in rural Trinidad in 1932, wrote more than 30 books including A Bend in the River and his masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas. His wife Lady Naipaul called him a “giant in all that he ...