When I was 17 years old, I wrote Elliott Smith a fan letter. It was the year 2000, and I was a high school senior in Dallas. I had never written a fan letter to anyone, but I felt connected to Elliott, despite the fact that we didn’t really have that much in common. He…

I’ve been banging on about the merits of slow cookers, especially during a heatwave, all summer. Even though they’re usually associated with stodgy winter dishes, their lower temperature and enhanced insulation mean they don’t warm your kitchen up as much as you’d expect. Alongside a delicious coconut lentil soup and some Greek-inspired mains, I’ve been…

As the youngest daughter, you may get labelled as the baby of your family even long after becoming a grown adult. “A youngest daughter may be simultaneously protected as the baby, expected to be emotionally accommodating as a daughter and discouraged from separating too far from the family,” said Linda Yoon, a therapist and founder…

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how different the pitch for Pretty Woman – originally called 3000 – was from the film we know now. Don’t get me started on the extremely unlikely source material for Dirty Dancing 2, either. As it turns out, the first version of Pixar’s Monsters Inc was almost unrecognisable…

Madonna is unquestionably one of the greatest and most impactful pop artists of all time – not to mention one of the most controversial. One area that the Grammy winner has always managed to express herself is through her music videos, something which she’s carried on right up to the present day, with her recent…

In a job where a regular day of work might involve bunching your genitals into a drawstring bag or spending 12 hours in a sweaty costume (not all of which allow you to pee easily), actors are pretty used to unusual requests. Even among the most seasoned pros, however, some scenes are a step too…

In my line of work, I come across a fair few parenting hacks – some of which occasionally make my eyebrows hit the ceiling (egg sock, looking at you). And I have to admit, I did let slip a ‘yeah right’ when I came across a video on Instagram months ago suggesting that putting out…

I hadn’t seen my dad in five years when my sister texted me that he had fallen at home. After I had my first child, the childhood abuse I had previously overlooked to keep the peace suddenly became incomprehensible, and I chose to become estranged from him. But when I found out he was dying,…