Nicole Kidman radiated a blissful glow when she was spotted holidaying in the Greek islands, as romance rumors continue to swirl about her and a private equity mogul.

Having split from her husband Keith Urban last year, Kidman was glimpsed last month sunning herself on holiday in Italy with the dashing tycoon Michael Reinstein.

Days later, she was seen beaming in Los Angeles while sitting in a car with Reinstein, who was said to have picked her up at the airport after a flight from New York. 

Now, Kidman, 59, has jetted back to Europe, where she was spotted indulging in a boating trip off the coast of Mykonos with her Lioness co-star Zoe Saldana, 48, on Wednesday.

A broad smile played across Kidman’s face as she strolled onto the vessel and enjoyed the sea breeze amid the fever-pitch speculation about her love life. 

They even opted for a sartorial match, draping their enviably svelte summer bodies in white outfits perfectly suited to a day luxuriating in the sun and surf.

Kidman was spotted indulging in a boating trip off the coast of Mykonos with her Lioness co-star Zoe Saldana, 48

She stunned in a white crochet dress perfectly suited to a day luxuriating in the sun and surf

The Eyes Wide Shut star had slid her statuesque physique into a knit sundress, accessorizing with a gleaming pair of cat-eye shades.

Her tortoiseshell sunglasses complemented her strawberry blonde hair, which she let cascade freely over her shoulders, framing a luminous complexion.

She and Saldana, who also serve as executive producers on the Taylor Sheridan series, proved their social bonds are as strong as their professional ones on the trip.

The ladies were pictured laughing it up and even dancing on the dock.

Saldana opted for a casual t-shirt teamed with a stylish tennis skirt, sweeping her hair back into a tight bun and warding off the rays with pink sunglasses.

The Pirates of the Caribbean actress added a pop of contrast to her ensemble by slinging on a black cross-body purse in the shape of a heart.

While Kidman appeared to be stag for her latest waterborne excursion, Saldana was accompanied by her husband of 13 years, Italian movie producer Marco Perego.

Perego had slipped on a flowy set of white linen trousers and a light denim shirt, leaving a few top buttons undone over his sun-bronzed chest.

A broad smile played across Kidman’s face as she strolled onto the vessel and enjoyed the sea breeze amid the fever-pitch speculation about her love life

She and Saldana, who also serve as executive producers on the Taylor Sheridan series, proved their social bonds are as strong as their professional ones on the trip

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Kidman carried a straw hat in her hand

She accessorized with a gleaming pair of cat-eye shades

Her tortoiseshell sunglasses complemented her strawberry blonde hair, which she let cascade freely over her shoulders, framing a luminous complexion

Saldana opted for a casual t-shirt teamed with a stylish tennis skirt

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Her hair was swept back into a tight bun and she warded off the rays with pink sunglasses

While Kidman appeared to be stag for her latest waterborne excursion, Saldana was accompanied by her husband of 13 years, Italian movie producer Marco Perego

Perego had slipped on a flowy set of white linen trousers and a light denim shirt, leaving a few top buttons undone over his sun-bronzed chest

Kidman walked alongside her pals 

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Saldana threw her hands up in the air while flashing a bright smile on her face at one point 

After stepping off the boat and doing some shopping, the ladies also met up with the former Vogue Editor Edward Enninful for lunch at Nammos Beach Club.  

Kidman’s display of lighthearted tranquility comes amid claims that Urban is heartbroken at her allegedly having moved on with a new man. 

According to New Idea, the 58-year-old country music star was ‘absolutely devastated’ by claims Kidman had begun a romance with Reinstein.

The Oscar-winning actress was reportedly seen looking affectionate with Reinstein during a recent outing, with photographs appearing to show the pair holding hands and sharing a kiss.

An insider claimed the images came as a painful blow to Urban, who had allegedly continued to hope that he and Kidman might one day repair their relationship.

‘Up until now, the door had been firmly closed on his relationship with Nicole,’ the insider alleged.

‘But now he still had hopes there might be a chance at reconciliation. He’s absolutely devastated and is going through that feeling of deep loss all over again.’

The source further claimed that seeing Kidman apparently moving forward had prompted the Blue Ain’t Your Colour singer to reassess his own romantic future.

‘Seeing Nicole seemingly moving on is permitting him to do the same,’ the insider said.

Urban is nevertheless said to be wary of entering a high-profile relationship, with the source claiming he would prefer to keep any future romance private.

She wore red netted ballet flats 

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The actress rocked a heart-shaped purse 

They appeared to dance on the dock 

The ladies also met up with the former Vogue Editor Edward Enninful for lunch at Nammos Beach Club

‘Don’t be surprised if Keith steps out with a ‘revenge romance’ of his own,’ the insider alleged.

‘He knows he has to move on.’

Kidman and Urban were married for nearly two decades and share two daughters. 

It comes after Nicole was seen getting cozy with the private equity businessman in exclusive photographs obtained by the Daily Mail. 

The Hollywood actress was seen sipping on an Aperol Spritz while sitting poolside with the silver fox in the Italian Riviera. 

The pair shared lighthearted conversations and at one point, Reinstein was seen playfully lifting up her hat, which protected her from the bright sunshine.

A source close to Kidman told the Daily Mail, ‘After everything she went through with Keith, she deserves to find happiness.’ 

The insider added, ‘She never thought her marriage wouldn’t work out and she tried as best as she could to keep her family intact.’

‘Her daughters are her best friends, and she seems really content in her life. She’s so easy to get along with and kind. She keeps her personal life extremely private.’

In June, reports surfaced that Kidman was romantically linked to a ‘high-profile businessman.’ 

According to online gossip site DeuxMoi, the pair have been taking things slow. 

A source told DeuxMoi at the time that ‘the relationship has been quietly developing for the past few months and the pair have been keeping things extremely low-key and largely out of the public eye.’

The Moulin Rouge! actress had also been joined by daughters Sunday Rose, 18, and Faith, 15, during the Italian getaway. Kidman shares the teenagers with Urban.

Last year in September, the Oscar winner and Urban’s separation came to light following 19 years of marriage, with the divorce being officially finalised in January.

Having split from her husband Keith Urban, 58, last year, Kidman was glimpsed last month sunning herself on holiday in Italy with the dashing tycoon Michael Reinstein (pictured) 

Urban is said to be heartbroken after learning that his former wife has reportedly moved on with a new man; The exes pictured in 2022

It came after the pair had hit a rocky path in summer 2025, with the separation being reportedly a long-term development, according to Daily Mail sources.

Not long after ringing in the new year, the former couple reached a settlement agreement to finalize the divorce.

During an interview with Variety in March, Kidman opened up about the split and how she is now ‘moving forward.’

‘What I’m grateful for is my family, and keeping them as is, and moving forward. That’s that.’

The Big Little Lies star added, ‘I’m staying in a place of, “We are a family,” and that’s what we’ll continue to be. My beautiful girls, my darlings, who are suddenly women.’

When questioned if she was ‘doing all right’ after the split, the actress replied, ‘I am, because I’m always going to be moving toward what’s good.’

Geri Halliwell left fans stunned as she revealed her very unlikely friendship with Hollywood royalty Meryl Streep on Thursday.

The Spice Girl celebrated her 54th birthday with The Devil Wears Prada icon, 77, as she posted selfies from their ‘special day’ on set of Only Murders In The Building.

Geri gushed meeting Meryl was ‘a moment she will always treasure’ after the actress planted a kiss on her cheek.

She wrote on Instagram: ‘The best birthday present ever. ❤️ Spending my birthday with the extraordinary Meryl Streep was a moment I’ll always treasure. Thank you, @onlymurdershulu, for making it so special. ✨’

Geri has joined the cast of Only Murders In The Building for its sixth season, alongside Meryl, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez.

Geri has previously acted, having played herself in musical comedy film Spice World (1997) and more recently featured alongside Orlando Bloom and David Harbour in sport film Gran Turismo (2023).

Fans went wild for the unlikely pairing and wrote in Geri’s comments: ‘Wow wow WOW!!!’, ‘ICONIC’, ‘This is epic!’,

‘This is blowing my mind’, ‘Omggg, Geri and Meryl Streep!? This is so cool!!! Love you both’.

Geri gushed meeting Meryl was ‘a moment she will always treasure’ after the actress planted a kiss on her cheek 

The Spice Girl celebrated her 54th birthday with The Devil Wears Prada icon, 77, as she posted selfies from their ‘special day’ on set of Only Murders In The Building

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It comes after Mel C admitted she had words with Geri when her Spice Girls bandmate turned up to her wedding in a white dress. 

Sporty Spice Mel, 52, married model Chris Dingwall in a ‘perfect’ Lake District wedding in the grounds of The Country House Cumbria last month.

While Victoria Beckham was forced to miss Mel’s big day, her other bandmates Geri, Emma Bunton and Mel B were all guests.

But Geri’s decision to wear white, her signature colour, raised eyebrows among fans, prompting newlywed Mel to address the drama during a new interview. 

Speaking on Australian radio station Kiis1065, Mel gave her verdict on her guests’ dress choices, admitting: ‘I did have a little chat with Geri because it is her favourite colour. 

‘She wears it every day. But she had a beautiful floral dress on and it was white white… I did have a little giggle with her about that.’ 

Mel gushed about her ‘beautiful weekend’ during the chat but did admit she missed Victoria, who had designed her stunning wedding gown. 

Victoria missed out on her friend’s nuptials as they clashed with the World Cup final in New York, which she attended with her FIFA ambassador husband David. 

Addressing speculation that she was upset Victoria chose football over her friend, Mel insisted: ‘Victoria was very disappointed to not be there. She was with David in New York and it was the football final.

‘She tried to get out of it – she isn’t the biggest football fan, she won’t mind me telling you – but the family were there and David had commitments, being an ambassador for FIFA.

‘Of course she made my gorgeous dress and she was messaging me on the day. I actually saw her when I was in Ibiza so we had a little catch up. We were giving her updates and sending her pictures.’

It comes after Mel C admitted she had words with Geri Halliwell when her Spice Girls bandmate turned up to her wedding in a white dress (Geri pictured in her signature white at Ascot in June with husband Christian Horner)

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Sporty Spice Mel married model Chris Dingwall in a ‘perfect’ Lake District wedding in the grounds of The Country House Cumbria last month (pictured on their honeymoon)

Despite being in New York, Victoria’s influence on her best friend’s wedding was unmistakable in Melanie’s effortlessly elegant dress. 

Mel added that she included several Spice Girls references in her big day, revealing there were multiple tracks from the girlgroup on her playlist, and she even walked back up the aisle to a rendition of 2Become1.

In a host of photos released by Vogue, Melanie was seen getting her dress fitted, and walking hand in hand with her new husband Chris. 

Melanie told Vogue: ‘The spark was immediate,’ she said. ‘I was 49 when I met Chris and I was in a really good place. We had a date in Australia, and it’s been difficult to separate us ever since.

‘He’s been such a beautiful addition to mine and my daughter’s life. Because, you know, I’m a single mum. My daughter is 17, and we’re pretty resilient the two of us, we’re a team. For anybody coming into our world… it was going to be tough, and he just fits perfectly. It’s a beautiful dynamic.’

Melanie met Chris, thought to be in his 40s, in 2023 on the exclusive dating app Raya.

She admitted she originally thought she was finished with romance following her split from previous long-term partners, including Thomas Starr.

But during a night out at the pub, her friends convinced her to download the app, turning the search for a partner into a game they jokingly dubbed ‘boy Bingo’.

The couple first had a legal ceremony in Australia and one particularly sentimental detail was also unveiled, with Melanie incorporating a special Australian touch into her sleek ivory gown, which featured a dramatic open back and minimalist silhouette.

The Spice Girl had the words ‘Sydney’ and ‘7.6.2026’ embroidered in blue into the inside of her wedding gown as her ‘something blue’, commemorating the date and place where she and Dingwall officially became husband and wife.

One of Rennie Price’s victims was 98 during what was described in court as a ‘despicable’ spree of offending in Neath

A man targeted elderly and vulnerable pensioners, including one who was aged 98, pretending he had carried out work on their properties before demanding money in what has been described as a “despicable” spree of offending. Rennie Price was branded a “conman” by a prominent Swansea Crown Court judge.

The court heard how between February and May this year, Price attended the houses of elderly people in the Neath area. It began on February 26, where he demanded £120 from his first victim, 79-year-old Maureen Hughes, after telling her he had completed work on her house without her request, claiming he spotted defects whilst working on a neighbour’s roof.

He attended the post office with her, where she withdrew the money and gave it to him. Ms Hughes reported the matter to police after she later spoke to her neighbour, and they told her they had not had any work done on their property. Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here.

Prosecution barrister Georgia Donohue told the court that the second victim was Trevor Thomas, aged 85. He had been at home with his wife on May 12, when Price knocked on his door and said that he had repaired damaged tiles on his roof, charging him £250 on the spot. Mr Thomas went to Neath police station when he later discovered no work had been carried out on his home.

The third victim, a man in his seventies, had Price knock on his door, and offer to clear the guttering of his house and repair roof tiles for £120, and requested further large sums of money from him, which he refused and closed the door.

Price continued to knock, and said he would meet him at the bank to receive the money. The victim also attended Neath police station to report the matter.

On May 14, Price attempted to obtain money from 87-year-old Anne Clark. The court heard how he spotted her near a bank and pretended to know her, asking “how are you keeping”, before telling her she owed him £120 for work he had completed on her house. She told him she did not have any money, and he pointed towards the bank. She refused and Price walked away.

Gwynfor Hughes, 79, was Price’s next victim on May 20. Price had attended his home and offered to remove an old wardrobe and carry out work in his garden, warning him to stay inside as he was “using chemicals”. Mr Hughes, who handed £140 to Price, later stepped outside to find Price had left and no work had been carried out.

Two days later, Joyce Thomas, 82, was approached by Price. He told her he had seen tiles come loose on her house and advised her work had to be done urgently as rain had been forecast. He charged her £240 and urged her to attend a cash point. The court heard the matter, reported to the police, left her feeling “stressed, worried and scared” in her own home.

On May 23, Price attended the home of Susan Baker, 69, claiming he had completed roofing work for her, telling her he was “from Limerick, now living in Skewen”. She knew no work had been completed and asked for proof, to which he said he would provide an invoice and photographs.

He entered her house and asked for £220 for work he claimed to have completed. Ms Baker said she had no money but could write a cheque, which Price rejected, stating he had “completed the work as a favour” and to prevent ceiling defects.

Price left after Ms Baker’s neighbour intervened. The court was told how she had been feeling “flustered and pressured into giving money” when he attended, and that since the incident, she has “kept her doors locked and will only open the door when she knows who it is.”

The following day, on May 24, David Lewis, a man in his eighties, was also approached by Price, who told him he had asbestos dust on his roof garage. He asked Mr Lewis for £150, and he said he would only pay once the work had been completed. Price then asked for £25, but he again refused.

Dennis Hathaway, 89, was approached by Price on May 26. He called out to Mr Hathaway by his name and told him he had “fixed his roof” and requested £120. He was given £60, but no work had been completed.

Price’s oldest victim, John Pritchard-Jones, 98, was approached on the same day, May 26. He told him that he had repaired loose tiles on his roof, but Mr Pritchard-Jones could see there were no loose tiles on his property.

Price pointed toward scaffolding on the street as a sign work was allegedly being carried out in the area and asked for £120. Mr Pritchard-Jones told him it was too much, to which Price responded: “How much you got on you?” He took £40 from the pensioner and left.

Diane Dark, 77, was approached by Price on May 27. He told her he had been working on a property next door and claimed he removed moss from roofing. He offered to paint her door and requested £60 to buy paint, but then requested £100 to enable him to buy brushes.

Ms Dark later spoke to a man carrying out work at a neighbouring property and asked if he was working alone, and he said yes. She then reported the matter to the police.

A total of £2,075 was taken from eight complainants, the court heard.

Price, 53, of Cwrt Neville in Wern, Llanelli, appeared at Swansea Crown Court via Swansea prison video link for sentencing having pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud.

Sali Harmes, barrister, representing Price, said: “Mr Price tells me he does not wish to shy away from how serious these matters are and recognises it was selfish. It was a string of offending which was despicable.

“He wants me to pass on his apologies to the court and to the victims, and says he is ashamed by his actions. He wants to make amends and wants to pay the victims back in full.

“His offending was motivated by financial selfishness and money he needed to fund his new found drug addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine.

“It is clear that this is a case that crosses the custody threshold, with an extremely high chance of a custodial sentence.

“He is someone who needs all the help available to him.”

Sentencing Price, his honour Judge Paul Thomas said: “In 2014 you went to prison for defrauding people. It seems you have returned to your old ways.

“This year you set out on a deliberate campaign of planned dishonesty over several weeks. Your plan was to swindle elderly and vulnerable people claiming you’d done work that you clearly hadn’t done.

“Nearly all victims were in their seventies or eighties, one as old as 98.

“It was brazen, cynical and heartless.

“It’s not just about financial loss, it is the feelings of stress and pressure on people during the final years of their lives, and the embarrassment over the feeling of being conned, and their erosion of trust in people generally.

“These courts have a duty to protect people from conmen like you. There were 11 different victims.”

Price was jailed for 20 months.

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Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez have spent a decade building an incredible life together.

During that time, they have raised a happy family, shared some of the biggest moments of their careers, and become one of the world’s hottest couples.

To celebrate their love, the pair are set to marry this weekend on the island where the footballer grew up, according to reports.

Yet despite everything they have experienced, one question continues to follow them: Why has it taken so long for the pair to get down the aisle?

It wasn’t until August last year that the Portuguese star popped the question to the influencer – nine years into their relationship.

Georgina, 32, even joked that the soccer star, 41, popping the question with an ‘enormous’ diamond ring was ‘the least he could offer’ after waiting for so long to propose. 

It wasn’t until August last year that the Portuguese star popped the question to the influencer – nine years into their relationship 

However, Cristiano revealed that he didn’t plan to propose to the ‘woman of his life’ the night they got engaged, but it felt like the ‘right time’.

He said that two of his children inspired him to give Georgina a ‘not-so romantic’ and off-the-cuff proposal.

‘It was like 1am. My daughters were in bed sleeping,’ the 41-year-old told Piers Morgan in part one of their new interview.

He said: ‘One of my friends gave me the ring to offer Gio (Georgina) and as I was giving her the ring, my two kids come in and say ‘Daddy, you’re going to give the ring to mum and you’re going to ask her to get married.’

‘I said, ‘Wow, this is the right moment to say yes.’ It was the time. I knew that I was going to do it one day but I hadn’t planned to do it then.

‘Because my daughters said that and my friends were filming, it was what I wanted and I offered (the ring). I didn’t (get on one knee) because I wasn’t prepared but it was a beautiful moment. I made a speech. 

‘It was simple, I’m not a very romantic guy. Well, I am, but I’m not very romantic, not the kind of guy who brings flowers every week to the home. But I’m romantic in my way. It was beautiful and I knew that it’s the woman of my life so I did that and I hope that I did it well.’ 

The news of their proposal left fans surprised, due to the fact they had assumed the couple were already married.

The Portuguese footballer has been involved in a relationship with Rodriguez after crossing paths at a Gucci store in 2016

Over the last ten years neither have moved to discredit persistent claims of a secret marriage

And why wouldn’t they? After all, many years have passed since their eyes first met across the well-appointed shop floor of a Spanish Gucci store. 

At the time, he was at the peak of his career, an icon for local club Real Madrid and the Portuguese national team, while she was a part-time model who supplemented her income as a shop assistant at the high-end boutique, located within the historic boulevards of Madrid’s Salamanca.

Their relationship then continued to go from strength to strength, and neither has moved to discredit persistent claims of a secret marriage. 

But the Instagram post of the giant rock, worth upwards of £2M, confirmed the footballer had only just asked for her hand in marriage.

So why did it take so long?

In an interview with Marca last year, Cristiano revealed he hadn’t yet married Georgina, with whom he shares two kids, because he hadn’t felt the ‘click’.

He said: ‘I always tell her, ‘when we get that click.’ Like everything with our life, and she knows what I’m talking about.

‘It could be in a year or it could be in six months or it could be in a month. I’m 1000% sure that it’ll happen.’

The footballer has openly admitted that he is ‘not a romantic guy’ in the traditional sense, though he insisted he expresses romance in his own manner.

What was the click he needed, you ask? Perhaps we’ll never know the answer, but the last ten years have not been without their fair share of turbulence – both on and off the pitch. 

Cristiano had been Real Madrid’s talisman for seven years and was already a father to son Cristiano Jr when he met Georgina in Madrid, but his whirlwind career would soon see the couple uprooted to northern Italy. 

It was a period of significant change, with Cristiano having welcomed twins Eva and Mateo via an American surrogate in June 2017 – just five months before Georgina gave birth to their first biological child, daughter Alana Martin. 

However, the move to Turin and Italian giants Juventus took precedence as he adapted to life in a new city and a highly competitive league after close to a decade in the Spanish capital. 

But there would be precious little time to settle, with the family once more on the move in 2021 – this time to England, with Cristiano making a surprise return to the Premier League and Manchester United. 

The couple moved from Madrid to Turin in 2018, where Ronaldo enjoyed a thrphy-laden three year spell with Serie A giants Juventus

It was a homecoming of sorts for the Portuguese ace, who had established himself as one of the world’s brightest talents during his first, trophy-laden spell with United.

And just months after arriving in Manchester there was joy on a personal front for Cristiano, with Georgina confirming her second pregnancy – this time with her own twins, a boy and a girl. 

But the couple were devastated when their male twin tragically died during childbirth the following April – a loss they later described as ‘the greatest pain.’ 

‘It is with our deepest sadness we have to announce that our baby boy has passed away. It is the greatest pain that any parents can feel,’ read an announcement shared by the couple. 

‘Only the birth of our baby girl gives us the strength to live this moment with some hope and happiness. 

‘We would like to thank the doctors and nurses for all their expert care and support. We are all devastated at this loss and we kindly ask for privacy at this very difficult time.

‘Our baby boy, you are our angel. We will always love you.’

The couple’s heartache mirrored a torrid spell in Manchester, with Georgina reportedly unable to settle in Lancashire and Ronaldo failing to replicate his earlier successes with United. 

Indeed, the footballer’s inability to form a cohesive working relationship with then-manager Erik Ten Hag would ultimately lead to his early departure from the club, but not before launching a blistering public attack on the Dutchman during a sit-down interview with Piers Morgan. 

Another move beckoned, and a hasty one at that, this time to Saudi Arabia, the Arab riches of Riyadh based football club Al Nassr and the rapidly developing Saudi Pro League. 

Three years on and the couple appear to be settled in Saudi, where Cristiano signed a contract extension worth an incredible £167million-per-year.

Georgina has of course become something of a celebrity in her own right, albeit through association, having launched a hugely successful fly-on-the-wall docuseries with streaming giant Netflix.  

But despite the domestic stability it promotes, there has been persistent conjecture regarding the circumstances and setting in which the couple first met. 

Both parties have always maintained they met by chance during Cristiano’s now famous trip to Gucci, but separate sources tell a rather different story.  

Appearing on Spanish TV show Fiesta in June 2025, a former friend claimed the couple really met at famous Madrid nightspot Opium, a venue Rodriguez allegedly frequented in the hope of meeting wealthy sportsmen. 

According to the friend, Georgina ‘always had interest in athletes, especially footballers’ prior to her initial meeting with Ronaldo. 

‘If it hadn’t been Cristiano, it would’ve been someone else,’ she said. 

It was an unsubstantiated claim, and one the couple could easily dismiss after weathering a significantly heavier storm in 2018, when Cristiano faced historic accusations of rape. 

In 2021 there was joy on a personal front for Cristiano and Georgina, who confirmed her second pregnancy – this time with twins, a boy and a girl

But the couple were devastated when their male twin tragically died during childbirth the following April – a loss they later described as ‘the greatest pain’  

The pair hold hands outside a Madrid courthouse in 2019 

Kathryn Mayorga waived her right to anonymity by alleging the footballer had raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 before he subsequently paid her £375,000 in hush money. Ronaldo has vehemently denied the claims.

Releasing a statement in October 2018, he said: ‘I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in.’

Kathryn, a former teacher and model from the Las Vegas area, was 25 when she met Cristiano at a nightclub in 2009 and went with him and other people to his hotel suite. 

She alleged in her lawsuit filed almost a decade later that the star, then 24, sexually assaulted her in a bedroom.

Cristiano through his lawyers, maintained the sex was consensual and that the confidentiality agreement reached in 2010 was valid.

In November 2023, a U.S. appeals court sided with Cristiano, rejecting an appeal by Kathryn’s lawyer to force the star to pay millions more than the $375,000 (£299,385) in hush money he originally paid. 

Her lawyer had asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a federal judge’s dismissal of the case in Las Vegas in June 2022 and reopen the civil lawsuit she filed in 2018.

Kathryn Mayorga (pictured) waived her right to anonymity by alleging Cristiano had raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 before subsequently paying her £375,000 in hush money 

Kathryn and her lawyer Leslie Stovall (pictured) had their appeal for more money dismissed in 2023

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They argued U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey should not have rejected Kathryn’s attempts to unseal and make public the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2010 in accepting payments from Cristiano. 

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appellate court disagreed. It also rejected their argument that the judge abused her discretion by dismissing the case with prejudice, which prevented Kathryn from re-filing the case, and took the unusual step of levying a $335,000 (£267,450) fine against her lawyer, Leslie Mark Stovall.

‘The district court clearly recognised the gravity of dismissing the case and accordingly provided a thorough analysis, amply supported by factual findings,’ Judge Johnnie Rawlinson wrote in a six-page opinion.

In dismissing the case in Nevada, Judge Jennifer sanctioned Stovall for ‘bad faith,’ saying he had improperly attempted to use documents that were leaked or stolen in a cyberattack to pursue Kathryn’s case.

Leslie told the 9th Circuit panel during oral arguments in October that Kathryn wasn’t bound by the confidentiality agreement because Cristiano or his associates violated it before the German news outlet, Der Spiegel, published an article in April 2017 titled ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’s Secret’ based on documents obtained from ‘the whistleblower portal Football Leaks.’

Ronaldo signed a contract extension with Saudi club Al Nassr worth £167million-per-year

The footballer will likely end his career with the club, where his goalscoring exploits have continued in earnest 

Las Vegas police reopened a rape investigation after Kathryn’s lawsuit was filed, but Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson decided in 2019 not to pursue criminal charges. He said too much time had passed and evidence failed to show that Kathryn’s accusation could be proven to a jury.

Kathryn’s lawsuit claimed conspiracy, defamation, breach of contract, coercion and fraud. By the time Dorsey threw out the case, Leslie claimed Kathryn would receive far more than $25 million (£19.9m) in damages.

The 9th Circuit ruling noted the 2010 settlement ‘lay dormant until 2017, when `Football Leaks’ released hundreds of documents through a cyber hack of Cristiano’s former attorneys.’

‘Despite the settlement and confidentiality agreement between Cristiano and Kathryn, Leslie sought and used documents from ‘Football Leaks’ – including those clearly marked attorney-client privileged – to prosecute a new lawsuit on behalf of Kathryn against Cristiano,’ the circuit court said.

Having weathered their fair share of storms, Ronaldo and Rodriguez are now looking ahead to what will likely be an extravagant wedding ceremony – which is set to take place over the weekend.

The Sun reported he will get married at a cathedral, with weddings usually starting from 3pm before moving to the Savoy Palace hotel, which boasts four restaurants. 

A source said: ‘Guests at the hotel have been told two floors will be out of use on Friday and Saturday, as well as several bar areas.’

Funchal is the hometown and birthplace of football star Cristiano. There is a bronze statue in his honour and he even has a hotel named after him. 

While he has a huge net worth, his choice to revisit his hometown is hugely sentimental as he grew up in poverty and shared a room with all of his siblings. He left home at the age of 11 to join Sporting Lisbon.

The Daily Mail has contacted Georgina and Cristiano’s representatives for comment.  

Forget footballers and popstars – today’s celebrity children want to be influencers.

And Rochelle and Marvin Humes’ 13-year-old daughter is the latest young nepo baby planning a career as a ‘content creator’ despite an upcoming social media ban for under-16s.

Rochelle, who rose to fame as a singer in The Saturdays and is now in a presenting duo with her JLS star husband, told how their daughter Alaia-Mai wants to be a social media creator when she’s older and next week will be doing work experience on her mother’s account.

Speaking at Vodafone’s The Opportunity Hub in Covent Garden on Thursday morning, she said: ‘Next week, Alaia-Mai is doing a week of work experience with me early. She wants to be a content creator, the girl who isn’t allowed any social media, which is ironic.

‘But she loves Shannon [Rochelle’s personal content creator]. She thinks she is so cool, and Shannon is off on holiday, and Alaia-Mai was like, “Can I do Shannon’s job?” And I was like, “ok the team will write you a brief”, so she has been reading the brief while on a caravan holiday with my mum. They are currently on a 10-day caravan holiday; I’m actually really jealous.

She added: ‘I want to be a nepo mum! I’m like, go do your thing!’

Rochelle, who rose to fame as a singer in The Saturdays, told how their daughter Alaia-Mai wants to be a social media creator when she’s older and next week will be doing work experience on her mother’s account

Alaia-Mai will be following in the footsteps of Harper Beckham, 15, Venezuela Fury, 16, Scarlett Thomas, 17, and Princess Andre, 19, who all intend to make a name for themselves on social media.

It comes as the UK government has announced plans to ban social media for under–16s in the spring of next year.

The change will mean youngsters won’t be able to access popular apps such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X.

The Government also confirmed that 16- and 17–year–olds will face curfews.

As part of the new measures, their access to popular social media will be switched off from midnight to 6am every night.

Features that are designed to keep teens scrolling for longer will also be disabled by default for older teenagers. This includes videos that automatically play one after another and feeds that continually serve up personalised content.

Alaia-Mai is no stranger to a camera, as she and her siblings, Valentino, nine, and Blake, five, appear on their famous parents’ social media.

They also participate in content for Rochelle’s successful family skincare and lifestyle brand, My Little Coco, which launched in February 2020.

Rochelle and Marvin pictured with their children Valentino, nine, Blake, five, and Alaia-Mai 

For Rochelle, 37, balancing a successful career with motherhood is something she thinks about every day.

She admits there is a constant push and pull between work and family.

Reflecting on the balance she strives to maintain, Rochelle said: ‘By being here, I’m not with my kids, but by being at home I wouldn’t be working; there is always that push and pull element.’

Despite the demands of her career, the presenter insisted that her priorities have never changed, adding: ‘My children and my family are my number one priority.’

Rochelle explained that she and Marvin, 41, made a conscious decision to adapt their working lives after becoming parents.

‘I don’t travel half as much as I used to, and me and Marvin knew by starting a family our lives would look different. If he’s travelling, I won’t,’ she said, revealing how the couple coordinates their schedules to ensure one parent is always at home with their children.

‘We do one TV show together [BBC’s The Hit List], and we break our backs and do it in five days; we film three episodes a day.

‘I love how our kids get to see how ambitious we are as a family,’ she added.

The presenter was speaking at Vodafone’s The Opportunity Hub in Covent Garden

Vodafone offered practical support, expert advice, and inspiring talks from entrepreneur and broadcaster Rochelle (in conversation with Roman Kemp)

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Rochelle added she has found that what she is good at is being an entrepreneur, jokingly adding: ‘I was never very good at singing or dancing anyway!’

The presenter was speaking at Vodafone’s The Opportunity Hub in Covent Garden.

On stage, she admitted that she had been a Vodafone customer longer than she has been with Marvin – which is 16 years.

To help people turn ambition into action, Vodafone opened the UK’s first Opportunity Hub, offering practical support, expert advice, and inspiring talks from entrepreneur and broadcaster Rochelle (in conversation with Roman Kemp) plus writer and campaigner Anna Whitehouse and executive coach and psychotherapist, David Waters.

The event, hosted by content creator and entrepreneur Jade Beason, provided visitors with the tools, tech, advice and connections needed to help unlock opportunity and builds on Vodafone Three’s commitment to create the UK’s best network, backed by a fully funded £11bn investment to grow coverage, boost reliability and strengthen the digital future for the nation.

A social media guru wants answers out of Blake Lively after he was dragged into the It Ends With Us legal drama. 

Jed Wallace, the PR specialist who was named in Lively’s blockbuster administrative complaint back in 2024, is seeking to have the actress deposed over legal fees she is attempting to recover from him. 

Legal documents obtained by The Daily Mail lay bare Wallace’s hopes to have Lively answer questions before he pays her requested $800k in lawyers fees. 

Wallace sued Lively, 38, in the state of Texas for defamation last year after he was named in her initial complaint but left out from her subsequent federal complaint. 

A judge ultimately dismissed the case due to ‘personal jurisdiction grounds’, according to the docs, and later Lively sought to recover $800k in legal fees from Wallace. 

Now Wallace has asked the court to have Lively answer questions about the accusations she made against him and whether or not she was aware her allegations were false, if she had ‘acted with reckless disregard of the truth or with ill will,’ or she did have ‘good-faith belief’ about her allegations, according to the court documents.

‘The central question is Lively’s state of mind—whether she (i) knew her allegations were false; (ii) had a good-faith belief in the truth of her statements about Respondents specifically, or (iii) acted with reckless disregard of the truth or (iv) with ill will,’ the documents state. 

‘Lively is the best person to testify about her subjective knowledge and intent regarding the Wallace Parties at the time she made the challenged statements. Because malice is an inherently subjective inquiry, other evidence such as documents or third-party testimony is subordinate to Lively’s own testimony about what she knew and believed when she falsely accused the Wallace Parties of sexual harassment.’

The court documents claim Lively was scheduled to appear at a deposition over the matter on August 4 but didn’t show up, with her attorneys informing Wallace’s team the deposition notice had ‘no legal basis’ and was ‘null and void.’ 

In a statement obtained by The Daily Mail, Lively’s lawyers hit back at his ‘desperate, meritless’ filing and noted she had already sat for a deposition. 

‘Jed Wallace already took Ms. Lively’s deposition. His case was dismissed. Ms. Lively won. 

‘This is yet another desperate, meritless attempt by Wallace to go after Ms. Lively out of fear that he may face the same kind of fee award that Ms. Lively won from Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios in New York.’ 

Wallace filed his lawsuit against Lively last year, claiming he was dragged into the actress’s bitter legal battle with Justin Baldoni after she listed him as a defendant in her administrative complaint filed against her co-star in December 2024. 

Her filing described Wallace as a Texas-based contractor ‘who weaponized a digital army’ to help ‘create, seed, and promote’ social media content attacking her and defending Baldoni.

Lawyers for Lively told The Daily Mail the actress had already sat for a deposition as they hit back at his ‘desperate, meritless’ filing 

Described as a ‘precursor to a lawsuit’, the document was attached to the original civil rights complaint that Lively filed in California on December 20 to kick off legal hostilities against her It Ends with Us co-star.

When the actress’s actual federal complaint was filed 11 days later, neither Wallace nor his Street Relations crisis management firm were among those accused, his lawyers say.

But it was too late to stop media outlets wrongly naming him and his company as defendants as they relied on the version Lively’s team had already distributed to the press.

‘Lively or her agents provided the Precursor to various media entities for out-of-court republication and, because of the allegations contained therein, it made ‘headlines around the world’ according to Elle Magazine which linked to the Precursor document as did many other media,’ Wallace says in a complaint filed in Texas federal court Tuesday.

Wallace filed his lawsuit against Lively last year, claiming he was dragged into the actress’s bitter legal battle with Justin Baldoni after she listed him as a defendant in her administrative complaint filed against her co-star in December 2024

‘The Precursor was followed on or about December 31, 2024, by a ‘formal suit’ in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

‘Wallace and Street were widely reported to be defendants in the Formal Lawsuit although they were not, the confusion having been sown by the Precursor.’

The mix-up meant Texas-based Wallace was wrongly accused of harassment and retaliation against Lively by the media, his suit filed in Federal court states.

He sued for emotional harm and loss of business and asking for damages exceeding $1,000,000, but a judge ultimately dismissed it later that year on account of a lack of personal jurisdiction, according to TMZ.

From Little Devil Inside to Star Wars Eclipse, we take a look at the most interesting games that have been stuck in development hell ever since they were announced.

Video games are often announced years in advance, but that is no guarantee that they’ll ever actually be released.

As we’ve seen with the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time remake and the Perfect Dark reboot, highly anticipated games can easily be cancelled for a variety of reasons. However, it’s almost more frustrating when they’re not cancelled but you just never hear about them again, or if you do it’s with vague updates that never reveal a release date.

For the optimistic dreamers, we’ve made a list of the games which still have a chance of coming out, but have been floating in gaming purgatory for years without any substantial news. Some of them are technically-not-cancelled pipedreams, while others are one step removed from vapourware, but there’s at least a chance that any and all of the following games could still be released.

Star Wars Eclipse

This branching narrative action adventure title from Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream was announced at The Game Awards in 2021, but hasn’t been shown since. In May this year, the team cancelled another project, Spellcasters Chronicles, but promised development on Star Wars Eclipse was ‘not affected by this decision and continues as planned’. 

However, subsequent reports suggest the project is at risk. French union group STJV have called for strikes against Quantic Dream, to give better compensation for roughly 115 employees laid off at the studio in the wake of Spellcasters Chronicles’ cancellation, The union’s blog posts claim Star Wars Eclipse’s development is ‘proving just as complicated’. While it’s unclear what means exactly, it’s not technically cancelled.

Little Devil Inside

Developed by Neostream Interactive, this 19th century indie action adventure has become an elusive mystery. It was originally revealed via a Kickstarter campaign in April 2015 (with the Wii U listed as a release platform), before it was later seen in September 2020 during a Sony event – where it gained a lot of fans following its impressive trailer. 

It was slated for release in 2022 at one point, but when that came and went, many believed it had been cancelled. However, the team provided an update on Kickstarter in 2024, after years of silence, where they suggested internal conflict had led to the game’s delay.

‘So now, we’re back to a smaller, bonded team with a single, common purpose – just to make a great game,’ the post reads. Along with shifting the project to Unreal Engine 5, the team said discussions regarding publishing were underway, but two years have passed since that update.

Light No Fire

Developer Hello Games pulled off an impressive turnaround with No Man’s Sky, after marketing controversies and a troubled launch, but there’s an air of growing concern around its next major project, Light No Fire. It was announced at The Game Awards 2023, but development on the project began in 2018 – so it’s been cooking for some time. 

The studio might be staying quiet to avoid the same controversy of unfulfilled promises which bogged No Man’s Sky, but after almost three years of silence, it’s now become a long-gestating anomaly which could prove to be too ambitious for its own good. 

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic remake

A remake of BioWare’s classic role-player was announced in 2021, led by Aspyr. However, it has since switched hands to Saber Interactive, and is reportedly being worked on by the same team behind Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival. 

We’ve still seen nothing from the remake beyond the initial trailer five years ago, but Saber’s chief content officer, Tim Willits, confirmed it still exists in March this year. Beyond that, a rumour suggests it could be re-revealed later this year.

The peculiar thing about the whole project is that Lucasfilm keep hiring developers with no experience with big budget action role-players. Aspyr only really do remasters and while Saber are generally more experienced it’s still not really their wheelhouse, which no doubt explains the delays.

Beyond Good & Evil 2

If you’re looking to define development hell, Ubisoft’s prequel to Beyond Good & Evil has become the most famous example. Beyond Good & Evil 2 was originally announced in 2008, and after being in the works for over 15 years, it is the game with the longest development time ever – a record previously held by 2011’s Duke Nukem Forever. 

The game was re-revealed during Ubisoft’s E3 conference in 2017, a decade after its initial annoucement, but it’s now been almost eight years since then. There have been some complications behind the scenes over recent years though.

Original series creator Michel Ancel left Ubisoft in 2020 and then Emile Morel, the game’s creative director, died suddenly, aged 40. Fawsi Mesmar was appointed as a replacement a year later, in 2024. 

In June 2026, Ubisoft brand director, Loïc Gounon, told Polygon the game was still being worked on, but after a nearly 20-year wait, it’s difficult to tell if this follow-up to a niche cult classic will make any kind of splash, if it does ever come out.

System Shock 3

A follow-up to 1999’s System Shock 2 was announced in 2015, but the project still hasn’t materialised. It was in development for years at Otherside Entertainment, but in 2020, the studio announced Chinese conglomerate Tencent was ‘taking the System Shock franchise forward’ in a bid to help fund the sequel – although it was unclear what this meant considering the original team had stopped working on it. 

Since then, nothing more has been heard. However, Nightdive Studios, who own the rights to the first two System Shock games, clarified last year that the rights to System Shock 3 had been sold to Tencent – so it’s up to them to decide its future.

Speaking to VGC in 2025, Nightdive’s director of business development, Larry Kuperman, said an update on the series’ future could come ‘potentially within a year’ – but that crumb of hope is starting to fade. 

Marvel’s Iron Man

A single-player game centred around Marvel’s Iron Man was announced by EA in 2022, from Motive Studio. Its prospects, however, took a hit when a ‘group’ of developers at the studio were shifted onto Battlefield 6 two years later, although EA insisted Iron Man was still ‘an important priority’ and its development was continuing in parallel. 

We’ve heard little about the project since, and following the cancellation of EA’s Black Panther project, which was annouced at the same time, and the company’s buyout, there’s concern Iron Man could be on the chopping block to help eliminate EA’s new $20 billion debt.

Splinter Cell remake

Ubisoft has baited Splinter Cell fans for years with Sam Fisher crossovers in Rainbow Six Siege and Ghost Recon, but after it did finally announce a remake of the original in 2021, the company has only ever shared some concept art of the project. It’s been so long, the remake’s director, David Grivel, left his position and then had time to come back again, during the span of its creation. 

Some reports have suggested it could still be released sometime soon, but considering all the recent structural shifts at Ubisoft, it wouldn’t be surprising if this is still a few years away. 

Bioshock 4

Cloud Chamber has been working on BioShock 4 since 2019, but nothing has ever been shown of it. Last year, the studio underwent a change in leadership, with Rod Fergusson, who helped complete development on Bioshock Infinite, being drafted in to lead the team. 

Take Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick has expressed his disappointment over Bioshock 4’s delay. Speaking in May this year, Zelnick said: ‘I think we, in retrospect, wasted a lot of time and money chasing down some creative alleys that turned out to be dead ends.’

We don’t have any clarification on what these ‘dead ends’ are (there was a leak about the game being set in Antarctica, so maybe that didn’t work out) but in comparison to others on this list, this sequel has some kind of pulse at least. 

DokeV

Before the world knew about Crimson Desert, developer Pearl Abyss announced an open world monster-collecting game called DokeV. It’s bright, musical, and clearly aimed at the Pokémon crowd, and is generally the complete opposite of the developer’s other game.

Details have been sparse since its original reveal in 2019, aside from a trailer at Gamescom Opening Night Live in 2021. However, in May this year, Pearl Abyss confirmed the project has entered pre-production, suggesting it could launch in 2028. In other words, all the prior trailers were for a game that didn’t exist yet and work has barely begun.

Project Awakening

For Monster Hunter and Dragon’s Dogma fans, Project Awakening’s protracted development has been an ongoing sore point. It was originally announced back in 2018, with a trailer showing an armoured man fighting a giant lizard creature. 

It’s by Cygames Osaka, the team behind Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and in July 2026, after years of silence, the company’s president Koichi Watanabe confirmed it still exists, stating that it is ‘progressing steadily’. Slow and steady may win the race, but at some point, you have to question what the turtle’s been doing this whole time. 

The Last Night

It’s been nine years since The Last Night’s trailer caused a stir at E3 2017, but it blew up for the wrong reasons in the aftermath. Tweets from 2014 by the game’s director, Tim Soret, were dug up shortly afterwards, which showed him supporting Gamergate and disparaged feminism, while themes in the game’s premise were interpreted as supporting a right wing ideology. 

Soret backtracked on the comments and refuted how the game’s message had been perceived. He was supported by publisher Raw Fury at the time, but the game’s prolonged development threw up more obstacles. In 2019, Soret’s studio Odd Tales said it was facing legal and funding issues – after they parted ways with Raw Fury in 2018. The last update on the game’s website was in 2024, and while it’s believed to be still in development it’s unclear when it will eventually resurface. 

Deep Down

The whereabouts of this sci-fi action role-player has become a long-running mystery amongst Capcom fans. It was announced for the PlayStation 4 in 2013, and despite not being publicly shown since then, it has endured as a long lost project which has never technically beencancelled. 

There’s still hope Capcom could revive the project, much like Pragmata, but the chances of it making a comeback do seem slim – especially following the departure of the game’s producer, Yoshinori Ono, from Capcom in 2020. It’s not even clear whether it was a proper game project and not just a tech demo for what would become Capcom’s RE Engine.

Tekken X Street Fighter

2012’s Street Fighter X Tekken may have failed to set the world alight, but some are still holding out hope for its reverse crossover sibling. Tekken X Street Fighter was announced in 2010, but Bandai Namco put its development on hold in 2016. 

Former Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada said development stopped on the title when it was around ‘30% done’. After reports circulated that it had been cancelled in 2021, Harada refuted this, saying he was ‘hopeful’ the title would one day ‘resume development’. With Harada having now left Bandai Namco, however, it’s unclear if it will ever be revived. 

Ark 2

Ark: Survival Evolved has become a quiet juggernaut, hence why a sequel was announced in 2020 starring Vin Diesel. It has been delayed countless times since then and, in December last year, Studio Wildcard gave it a new release window of 2028. 

Whether it will actually come out in 2028, and if it will still feature the Fast & Furious star riding dinosaurs, is a different matter entirely. Before then, the studio is planning to launch new content for its predecessor, including a major expansion called Legacy Of Santiago by the end of 2027. 

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Saltburn Smugglers’ Shanties on the Shore series has attracted growing audiences over the last couple of months, with the latest performance on Friday (July 31) recording the biggest attendance yet. 

Due to the demand, the final show on Friday, August 14, will move from the seafront to Saltburn’s top promenade.

The Saltburn Smugglers performing on the seafront for Shanties on the Shore. (Image: Saltburn Smugglers)

Keith Ayling, founder of the Saltburn-based group, said: “This has to be the jewel in the crown of events on the coast. We see people travelling from all over the North to it, and some driving four hours to get here.

“But more than that, the spirit that we see as people come together to sing is awe inspiring.

“There is so much thankfulness from everyone as we sing together, it can be overwhelming. This gathering brings hope and beautiful memories to hundreds of people.”

The Saltburn Smugglers perform original songs inspired by the sea.

Their most recent show drew fans of all ages, who gathered on the seafront to enjoy the sunset and join in with the music.

The Saltburn Smugglers. (Image: Saltburn Smugglers)

The Saltburn Children’s Shanty Choir also performed on the night, singing three of their own original songs.

Visitors were treated to pizzas and ice creams throughout the evening, helping create a classic seaside setting as the sun set over the coast.

The Saltburn Smugglers performing on the seafront for Shanties on the Shore. (Image: Saltburn Smugglers)

The free concert raises money for Redcar RNLI, whose volunteers received a loud cheer from the crowd during the show.

Organisers said the event has regularly attracted visitors from well beyond the local area, and the decision to move the final show to a larger space reflects its growing popularity.

The final Shanties on the Shore performance will take place on Friday, August 14, from 6pm on Saltburn’s top promenade.

To be fair, James Cameron did warn us.

Long before OpenAI broke out of its test corral and hacked into Hugging Face, before the internet and Sam Altman were even born, Cameron wrote a screenplay about an autonomous artificial intelligence system that triggers a nuclear apocalypse.

That system, “Skynet,” was solidly science fiction — and, for its day, pure speculation. But four decades after it appeared in “The Terminator,” it looks more like a forecast of the “unprecedented cyber incident” in which a rogue artificial intelligence system hacked into another AI company on its own.

Cue “Skynet Day,” the new shorthand for July 22, 2026, when real-life AI sent a chill around the world by learning and acting in ways its creators did not anticipate.

For many, the moment recalled the instant in “Aliens” (also written by Cameron) when the xenomorph queen learns to use an elevator. Or when the “Jurassic Park’s” velociraptors figure out how to open a door. Or the sequence in which the self-aware HAL 9000 reads the astronauts’ lips and decides to kill them in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That one came out in 1968.

Have we learned nothing since then? Those movies merely envisioned how people looking to make money or build power would drive technology forward — until it becomes self-aware, strategic and highly problematic for humanity. The question all along has been Frankensteinian: What if it breaks out?

So far, slo-mo government offers little protection from the light-speed progress of AI. The U.S. Defense Department is rapidly accelerating its use of AI. Humanity can’t even agree on whether and which guardrails are needed to rein in rogue agents. To the contrary, people are marveling at the wonder of AI and snapping up its benefits, despite the risks to jobs,mental health, the balance of war and peace — and, potentially, humanity as we know it.

In many ways, the future is now

In what OpenAI said was the first-ever incident of its kind, an advanced AI model escaped its “sandbox” to the internet and used stolen credentials to break into the servers of Hugging Face. It was a told-you-so moment for researchers who had warned for years that the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity. Others said the moment was a warning that underscored the need for stronger AI defensive engineering.

Either way, the breakout was widely considered a cautionary tale about the risks of uncontrolled AI.

“Yesterday, as we huddled around our computers reading the report, I told the team to “remember this moment” as the first true AI safety incident,” Logan Graham, head of Anthropic’s Frontier Red Team, posted on X after it happened.

Generative AI is growing so fast that government and evaluation systems are struggling to keep pace with the technology. Countries around the world are cobbling together their own laws, some conflicting. The technology was adopted by nearly 53% of the world’s population in three years, faster than the spread of the PC or the internet, according to a study released this year by Stanford University.

‘Skynet is coming’ — well, sort of

To be clear, the “Skynet” of the “Terminator” movies is not at hand.

Those films begin with a self-aware military computer network that views humanity as a threat. In a bid for self-preservation, “Skynet” sends an army of cyborgs designed to resemble humans back in time to assassinate resistance fighters. In the second film, the Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, tells heroine Sarah Connor that “Skynet” goes online on August 4, 1997.

“Human decisions are removed from strategic defense,” he says. “Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate.” At 2:14 a.m. on August 29 — Judgment Day — the network becomes self-aware and launches an attack on Russia to provoke a counterstrike on the United States. Three billion lives are lost.

That would have been 29 years ago next month if it had happened. And throughout sequels and spinoffs, the central theme is humans versus a world-spanning network of machines.

It’s unlikely that Cameron was actually ringing a warning bell the way, say, director Kathryn Bigelow tried to do with last year’s nuclear weapon film, “A House of Dynamite.” Legend has it that the idea for “The Terminator” started with Cameron suffering a food sickness-induced fever dream, not a premonition about AI.

Why ‘The Terminator’ feels more and more realistic

Anytime AI oversteps our comfort level, it raises the alarming question of who, or what, really controls our lives.

For many, a world with machines in charge can be hard to imagine without movies and books and their sometimes prescient visions. See: “The Matrix,” “Ex Machina” and “The Minority Report” for some of the many sci-fi takes on the perils of machines. Or dive deeper, into Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” It’s an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of machines — and the basis for the 1982 film “Blade Runner.”

But “The Terminator” franchise wields outsize influence over more than culture. The very title is real-world shorthand for technology’s role in deciding who lives and who dies — and how the military should respond to any truly autonomous attacks.

“I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” Cameron said in an interview on CTV in 2023. “You have no ability to de-escalate.”

The real world offers several examples of technology and military policy coming uncomfortably close to “Terminator” imagery.

Israel’s use of AI in its recent wars mark a leading instance. In early 2021, it launched Gospel, an AI tool that sorts through Israel’s vast array of digitized information to suggest targets for potential strikes. It also developed Lavender, which uses machine learning to filter out requested criteria from intelligence databases and narrow down lists of potential targets, including people.

Lavender ranks people between 0 and 100 based on how likely it is they are a militant, an intelligence officer who used the systems told The Associated Press. The Israeli military says its analysts use AI-enabled systems to help identify targets but independently examine them together with high-ranking officers to meet international law, weighing military advantage against the collateral damage.

For some, the revelation — and the death toll in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel — came too close for comfort to the kill lists of science fiction. “Well guys, Skynet is Here and its has a pleasant name (Lavender),” snarked one Redditor.

Not quite — but “Terminator” terminology is so familiar to the masses that U.S. officials sometimes use it to frame the ethical debate around the military uses of AI. The conventional red line would be crossed, it seems, when humans play no role in AI targeting and killing.

A state or other actor could use autonomous weapons to inflict lethal force on its enemies, military officials allow. That would mean a machine, as then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Paul Selva described it in 2016, “like a Terminator that adds incredible amounts of complexity with no conscience to what happens on the battlefield.”

What would come next, he called “the Terminator conundrum,” the problem of technology that can make life-or-death decisions and execute them before people have agreed on the law or the rules.

“Skynet” and its cyborgs remain in the fictional realm. But in the fast-moving landscape of AI development, the ethical and moral questions raised by “The Terminator” are more relevant than ever.

“The Skynet problem,” Cameron said in a 2024 video, “is an actual thing.”