Ahad On Fire

Ahad Raza Mir ain’t looking back. He shouldn’t. After Resident Evil, the young Pakistani actor has bagged another Netflix project: he will now be seen in World on Fire (Season 2), which revolves around common people faced with the horrors of World War II. He will act alongside the principal actors in the series, Lesley Manville, Jonah Hauer-King and Julia Brown. If we’re not mistaken, then the Oscar winning Helen Hunt, too, was part of Season 1. So good going Ahad M, your world is on fire!

The Gold and the Beautiful

On July 15, it was reported that TikTok star Hareem Shah and her husband were arrested at an airport in Turkey for, allegedly, carrying a large (read: more than allowed) amount of gold and cash. The pair was travelling to Muscat from Turkey where they were reportedly detained and interrogated by the authorities. The girl is no stranger to controversies, and is often in the news, not necessarily for the right reasons. True to form, she soon issued a denial of the news, vowing to take legal action against the media for spreading “fake news” against her. We bet it won’t be the last time she’s in the news though.

Amber Not Heard

On July 13, actress Amber Heard’s request to set aside the 10 million dollar judgment awarded against her after the defamation trial ended in favour of her ex-husband Johnny Depp, was rejected by Judge Penney Azcarate. In a written order, the judge turned down the actress’ claims about one of the juror’s age and pointed out, “The juror was vetted, sat for the entire jury, deliberated, and reached a verdict.” Dear Amber H, it’s time to accept reality; the whole world can’t conspire against you nor is everyone a Johnny D’s fan.

A Star Couple is Born

Pakistani-origin Huma Abedin, one of the top aides of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is going out with the Hollywood A-lister Bradley Cooper, believe it or not. Both have had relationships, steady and not-so-steady, in the past, and had until now had kept their hook-up under wraps. But things were revealed and then confirmed when the couple was seen attending the Met Gala 2022 together — although both appeared separately on the red carpet. Apparently, the editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour, introduced the two to each other at a party and ever since they’ve been an item. Hmmm… journalism and matchmaking, eh Anna W?… Not a bad moonlighting option.

Gentlemanly Hero

One of Shah Rukh Khan’s eagerly awaited films is Dunki, directed by arguably India’s most sought-after filmmaker Raju Hirani. By now everyone knows that the DoP of the project Amit Roy has parted ways with Raju H after shooting for more than two weeks, because of ‘creative differences’. When asked by a journo whether SRK tried to iron out those differences between them, the cinematographer replied, “It was a thing between a director and a DoP. SRK is anyway too gentlemanly to get into that relationship. Neither would he have asked Raju sir to shoot with me nor would he have had any other opinion on it. He was not a factor in my decision.” SRK and not a factor?… If you insist, Amit R!

A League of Their Own

Last week, tongues got wagging, like crazy, when it came to light that former Ms Universe, Sushmita Sen, and former chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Lalit Modi, are dating and were recently vacationing in the Maldives (as the lovey-dovey pictures revealed). By the way, it was announced by the London-based ex-chairman himself, who is a fugitive from the law in India. As soon as that happened, an eager netizen managed to find a Twitter exchange that took place between the two of them in 2013 in which Lalit M was urging Sushmita S to reply to his SMS. Well, apparently the reply did come, although the media got wind of it way too late.

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 24th, 2022