Pauline Quirke, famous for starring in TV sitcom Birds of a Feather, has retired from acting following a dementia diagnosis, her husband has said.

"It is with a heavy heart that I announce my wife Pauline's decision to step back from all professional and commercial duties due to her diagnosis of dementia in 2021," Steve Sheen said.

Her diagnosis was not made public at the time.

"Pauline has been an inspiration through her work in the film and TV industry, her charity endeavours and as the founder of the very successful Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts (PQA)," Mr Sheen added.

Mr Sheen praised his wife's "talent, dedication, and vision".

He said her drama academy had "touched countless lives and will continue to do so through the legacy of her work and through PQA where her vision and guidance has facilitated many young peoples' progression and interest in the arts and enhanced their self-confidence".

Quirke, 65, is best-known as an actress for her role as Sharon Theodopolopodous on the long-running sitcom Birds of a Feather, winning a British Comedy Award in 1990 for the role.

It ran from 1989 to 1998 on BBC One, and then on ITV from 2014 to 2020.

The series followed the lives of sisters Tracey and Sharon, played by Linda Robson and Quirke, who have to fend for themselves after their husbands are arrested for armed robbery.

Quirke and Robson met as children at drama school in north London.

The pair also worked together in ITV comedy drama Shine On Harvey Moon, set in London's post-war East End, from 1982 to 1985.

In 1997, Quirke was nominated for a Bafta award for playing convicted murderer Olive Martin in BBC drama The Sculptress, based on Minette Walters' psychological thriller novel.

She also received four National Television Awards nominations - three for Birds of a Feather and one for BBC drama series Down to Earth in 2002.

Quirke also starred in BBC detective drama Maisie Raine from 1998 to 1999, appeared in ITV's Broadchurch, and played Hazel Rhodes in Emmerdale from 2010 to 2012.

In 2022, Quirke was made an MBE for services to the entertainment industry, young people, and charities.

PQA has about 250 academies and more than 15,000 students across the UK, and will "continue to operate as normal in accordance with Pauline's ideology", Mr Sheen said.

The academy said it was "deeply moved by the messages that we have received", writing on Instagram: "It has been wonderful to see how many lives Pauline has touched through her work with PQA and in her 50-year career in film and television.

"Improving the lives of young people through the performing arts has been PQA's ethos since Pauline and Steve opened their first academy in 2007, and remains central to everything that we do."

Mr Sheen requested privacy and understanding for his wife and her family, saying they would not be making further statements.

"Pauline just wants to spend time with her family, children and grandchildren," he added.

Quirke and Mr Sheen married in 1996, and they have "pledged future support" for Alzheimer's Research UK to help raise funds for research and awareness, the charity said.

Hilary Evans-Newton, chief executive of Alzheimer's Research UK, said they were "saddened" to hear about the actress's diagnosis.

"The family should be praised for making the brave decision to make her diagnosis public, which will not only provide more freedom for them, but also raise such vital awareness of the condition," she said.

Dementia UK CEO and Chief Admiral Nurse Dr Hilda Hayo added: "By choosing to speak publicly about her condition, Pauline will raise vital awareness for young onset dementia.

"We hope this will encourage others to seek support if they are concerned about their brain health."

Mr Sheen also praised late actress Dame Barbara Windsor's husband Scott Mitchell for his work with the charity following her dementia diagnosis.

US singer-songwriter Ethel Cain has responded to a backlash after she posted the hashtag #KillMoreCEOs, following the murder of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in December.

Cain posted the original message while sharing a quote complaining about the influence of wealthy corporations and lobby groups on US politics.

It led a Fox News host to call for a boycott of her music.

The outspoken 26-year-old singer has now posted on her Tumblr blog: "I find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical 'woke liberal' standpoint. As if that even has anything to do with politics."

Cain added that she is from a "deeply conservative family in the sticks of Florida".

She said the US healthcare system had failed "each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation".

She added that "the men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can" because "all hell is gonna break loose" if ordinary left-wing and right-wing people "realise they have the same enemy".

Cain's original post on Instagram stories, according to Billboard, shared a quote from former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich about the influence of powerful organisations like health insurance companies and oil and the National Rifle Association on Congress, and how "money in politics is the root of our dysfunction".

Known for her provocative statements, she followed that with a post saying she wasn't being reactionary or "edgy", but that "I genuinely mean what I say".

"Corporations giggle at protesting," Cain wrote. "Why would anyone ever willingly come down off their throne that they've spent years building off the suffering of their fellow man?"

It was necessary to "make them fear for their lives and hit them in the only place they hurt", she claimed.

In a discussion on Fox News, host Jason Chaffetz responded: "It makes me mad, it's sad, it's disappointing... it's fundamentally wrong."

Political commentator Guy Benson told the channel: "It's sick, it's depraved, and the message there is violence is the answer."

He added: "This should be a very black and white moral issue, and it's scary to see how much support that type of sentiment has got."

Co-host Jackie DeAngelis added: "People need to boycott her."

The station referenced a poll suggesting many college students and Generation Z sympathised with the suspect in Mr Thompson's killing.

Luigi Mangione, 26, pleaded not guilty last month to murder and terrorism charges for the killing of Mr Thompson, who was shot outside a Manhattan hotel.

Some on social media praised Mr Mangione's alleged crimes, often sharing their own anger at the US private healthcare system.

Cain's latest comments come days after the release of her new album, Perverts.

She was ranked on Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 in Music list last year, has supported acts including Florence and the Machine and Mitski on tour, and has modelled for Givenchy, Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu.

Her records have earned glowing reviews, with Billboard describing her in 2023 as "a musical auteur" who makes "phenomenal music", and the New York Times saying in 2022 she had an "elaborate vision of becoming a different kind of pop star".

Fans have queued up for Onyx Storm, the hotly-anticipated new book by best-selling US fantasy author Rebecca Yarros, in one of the publishing events of the year.

Onyx Storm is the third novel in Yarros's Empyrean series, set in a world of dragons, magic, warfare and steamy romance.

Its publisher Little, Brown said it would be the company's biggest pre-ordered title since it released the Harry Potter play script in 2016.

Shops around the world held special events - either opening late on Monday or early on Tuesday - and UK chain Waterstones said the book was likely to "completely eclipse our first day sales" of the previous instalment.

Almost 60 branches of Waterstones had special openings for the release.

In the US, some avid readers waited until 3am for the online release of an exclusive special edition from Target - but many who had stayed up complained on social media that the store's website couldn't cope with the demand.

Rebekah West, editorial director of the Little, Brown's Piaktus imprint, told the Telegraph: "This level of fan devotion hasn't been seen since the days of Harry Potter."

Fan Mollie Short went to a book release party at Waterstones in Trafalgar Square, London.

"We got given goody bags and there were people dressed up as characters, and then there was a quiz that everyone played," said Ms Short, a 23-year-old nail technician from Essex.

"The night went pretty quickly, and then we all queued up ready for the midnight release. It was nice being in a room surrounded with people that actually understand what I'm talking about."

She added: "What I like about the books is that it's an escape. It's about magic powers, fantasy, not your everyday kind of thing, and she just writes really well for young readers.

"I'm really excited to read this book. I really don't know what is going to happen, because she did leave the last book on a cliffhanger."

In a message to fans on Instagram, Yarros wrote: "1. It's in your hands now. 2. Thank you for sharing this incredible experience with me. 3. Enjoy the ride."

One reader replied: "On chapter one and dying already", another wrote: "Thank you for sharing this incredible world with us!!!" and someone else asked: "Is it bad that I'm very close to calling off work to read?"

Yarros is one of the biggest names in the booming "romantasy" genre.

In anticipation of Onyx Storm's release, the first two Empyrean books, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, went back to the top two slots in the New York Times fiction bestsellers list.

They are also currently both in the top five of the Sunday Times paperback fiction chart in the UK, and they were the two most-read books of the past year around the world among users of Goodreads.

Fourth Wing introduced heroine Violet Sorrengail, a 20-year-old woman who is thrust into brutal training to become an elite dragon rider.

Like the author, Violet has a genetic condition that means the character dislocates joints and breaks bones easily - so must use her wits and inner strength to help her survive.

She is also entwined in a relationship with a fellow candidate called Xaden Riorson, who comes from a rival family.

Iron Flame was then set during Violet's second year at Basgiath War College, while in Onyx Storm, according to the publisher, she "knows there's no more time for lessons" because "the battle has truly begun".

A group of Bradford City fans will go from singing on the terraces to performing as a choir for a BBC programme called "Bantam of the Opera".

The fans - known as the Bantams - will be taught to sing to mark the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations.

They will be supported by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, opera singer Lesley Garrett and sports commentator and TV presenter Chris Kamara.

Their progress will be documented on Radio Leeds, with the Bantam of the Opera available on BBC Sounds from April.

Bradford City fans have been known as the Bantams since 1908. It is believed to symbolise the club's fighting spirit.

Kamara, who had a 20-year playing career and is also a former manager of Bradford City, is leading a call-out for singers to take part.

The broadcaster, who was diagnosed with the speech condition apraxia in 2022, has pledged he will perform with the Bantam singers at Valley Parade this year.

He said he had used singing to help him with his speech, wellbeing and mental health.

As well as being named City of Culture, 2025 also marks 40 years since the Valley Parade stadium fire, which claimed the lives of 56 supporters.

Kamara said: "This is an incredibly important year for Bradford, both the city and the football club.

"The power of music can be enormous, singing is a great way to bring people together, whilst being so positive for mental health.

"Singing has always been a part of my life, even when times have been tough."

The programme title is a play on Lord Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera, basted on the novel by Gaston Leroux.

English soprano singer Lesley Garrett will also be involved in key moments throughout the year.

She said: "Wherever there is football, there is singing. The two go together like fish and chips, like Yorkshire pudding and gravy.

"Community singing is the way we bind together to express powerful shared passions and opera is the most passionate form of singing there is.

"I am so excited to see and hear what the Bantams can achieve musically, but even more excited to see the joyous and uplifting effect that music-making will have on their lives."

Fans interested in being part of the choir can apply online.

Bradford City Football Club have agreed to support the call out for singers with two community outreach events at Valley Parade in January.

The first will be their home game against Walsall on 25 January. The second on Tuesday 28 January when Bradford take on Morecambe.

Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.

Worried about what's going to fill the gap once The Traitors ends on Friday? Fear not - the US version drops on Friday, with an all-star cast descending on the Scottish Highlands.

But that's not the only thing to look forward to this week. Little Mix star Jade Thirlwall will be talking to Louis Theroux about new music, Harry Styles and more.

Plus, The Brutalist is coming to UK cinemas, actress Naomi Watts is due to release a book, and FKA twigs's new album is out.

Read on for this week's biggest releases...

Hot on the heels of the UK final on Friday, the third season of The Traitors US is arriving on BBC iPlayer.

Five episodes will be available to stream on Friday, after which there will be a new episode available every Friday.

Unlike the UK series, the contestants on the US version are celebrities. The series two cast was primarily made up of US reality stars - with the additions of British Love Island winner Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu and former House of Commons Speaker John Bercow.

Players competing for the cash prize this time include Britney Spears' ex-husband Sam Asghari, former WWE wrestler Nikki Garcia and British aristocrat Lord Ivar Mountbatten.

The show is filmed at the same castle as the UK version but in place of Claudia Winkleman, Scottish actor Alan Cumming presents. Don't worry, his outfits are just as fabulous.

Jade Thirlwall waited the longest of any member of Little Mix to release solo music, but she's given fans plenty to get stuck into recently.

In July, she dropped debut single Angel of My Dreams, and she kicked off 2025 with a banger: a dance-pop track called It girl, which appears to take a swipe at the wider music industry.

On Tuesday, she's appearing on Louis Theroux's podcast, which will be available on Spotify.

I'm told it's going to be a "candid" conversation, in which Jade will discuss her early career and the X Factor era - including a date with Harry Styles.

Other topics on the agenda include fellow bandmate Jesy Nelson's departure from Little Mix, her experience of an eating disorder, her boyfriend (Rizzle Kicks star Jordan Stephens, in case you haven't been following), and her new album.

However good it is, it surely can't top her interview on podcast Sidetracked last year, in which she confessed she had a "poo incident" on stage with Little Mix. You can listen back to that on BBC Sounds.

The Brutalist has already won three prizes at the Golden Globes, and picked up nine Bafta film nominations.

The film, which is also tipped to be a big contender at the Oscars, is released in UK cinemas this Friday.

Starring Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, it tells the tale of a Hungarian architect who is hired by a wealthy American after World War Two.

It's also really long: 215 minutes including a 15-minute intermission in the middle.

I grew up watching Bollywood films, so a lengthy film doesn't spook me.

But my colleague Lizo Mzimba asked director Brady Corbet for his take on the duration.

"I think that's something you can't concern yourself with. You have to do what's right for the project," he said.

"The length of a movie is similar to the length of a book, a double album, a painting on a big canvas. I love small portraits and I love [German painter] Anselm Kiefer. For me, there's a space for both of them.

"And at the end of the day, especially if the film has an intermission, it's only 100 minutes on each side so it's not so bad."

Lizo's also interviewed the stars of the show - watch out for that later this week.

FKA twigs coined the phrase Eusexua to describe a feeling of euphoria that is like transcending the human form.

Just "don't call it love", she writes, in her song by the same name.

Eusexua is also the title of her upcoming third studio album, due out on Friday.

It's inspired by the techno rave scene in Prague, and is pronounced you-sex-you-uh, in case you were wondering.

Ever since it was announced, there have been near-constant memes.

But many have also expressed their thanks to the singer, that this word now exists.

“Still can't believe that the word Eusexua was literally never heard or used by a human before FKA twigs…”, wrote one X user.

You probably know the actress Naomi Watts for films like King Kong and The Ring.

But she also spends a lot of her time talking about the challenges she faced after experiencing early menopause.

She was 36 when she started having symptoms she couldn't explain, only to learn that she was going through menopause.

Now 56, she has written a book about her experiences and providing advice for other women.

In Dare I Say It, she says she was initially wary about writing about menopause because she feared negative repercussions for her career.

“No one in Hollywood was breathing a word about it. We were all behaving as if between the seductress years and the grandmother roles, women just… I don't know, vanished?” she writes, in an excerpt of the book seen by BBC News.

But she says she then decided to write it, after realising that there "is nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she wants".

Well said.

Singer Madi Saskia has been recording music and performing at venues across the UK since she was about 16 years old.

The R&B and soul artist from Smethwick, near Birmingham, was soon put forward for a music programme which culminated in a performance at the iconic Koko concert venue in Camden, London.

Ten years later, she is one of thousands of grassroots, professional musicians struggling to weather the storm of the cost-of-living crisis. And she thinks their plight has been overlooked.

"Everyone is human and I sometimes think people forget musicians are human as well - we are people too with bills to pay," she said.

While the absence of consistent pay has long been a concern for the performer and others like her, rising living costs have exacerbated the issue. Maintaining equipment, booking rehearsal space and covering travel costs has become more expensive for artists, while venues and gig-goers alike are tightening their budgets as they feel the squeeze.

For Ms Saskia, who relies solely on her music income, the rates she gets paid no longer add up.

She will often travel to and from a performance to find she used up the night's income to pay for that journey.

"Sometimes you'll only get paid what your phone bill is and then sometimes it will only cover your travel and your food," she said.

"Once I've fed myself and travelled back home, I still have to think about how I'm going to put money towards rent and bills."

Kelley Phillips sings as Kelley Tigerheart at pubs, clubs and events within 50 miles of her home in Nantwich, Cheshire.

She also teaches dancing twice a week and has picked up a part-time job to supplement her income.

That, she said, had "increased my time working, which has given me less leisure time".

"[But] I have had no other choice as a single woman living alone but to get other jobs."

Ms Phillips said things had "slowed down" over the past year due to pubs being more careful with their budgets, causing her to negotiate more and offer discounts.

But she said she would never give up performing and advised others looking to enter the industry to plan and budget meticulously.

"I always encourage people to go for their passions and do what they love," she said.

Jess Harper, marketing manager at Coventry venue The Tin, described grassroots venues as "incredibly essential" to budding artists.

But it is not easy for these premises. "Lots of venues are facing rent increases, price increases everywhere. It's a struggle for a lot of venues," Ms Harper explained.

The venue is raising money to refurbish the front of the building with more than £6,000 donated so far. Ms Harper said the venue was lucky to have so much support from regulars.

Asked how vital The Tin was to the city, she said: "It's really important, we would not get the bigger artists we have with these grassroots music venues."

She said initiatives like the Music Venue Trust's proposal for a £1 levy on arenas could help smaller venues with rising costs.

According to the Help Musicians charity, 44% of the 6,000 people interviewed for its 2023 Musicians' Census cited the lack of a sustainable income as a barrier to their career.

Meanwhile, 23% of musicians said they were unable to support themselves or their families, while venues tightened budgets.

This has contributed to a third of artists reporting low mental wellbeing, according to the charity.

But its director of services and research Laurie Oliva said musicians were "resilient", as 81% reported they would still be in the industry in five years.

"As fans, it's important we support artists where we can by buying tickets and merch, going to shows, and subscribing to initiatives," she added.

In the meantime, Ms Saskia says more investment is needed in infrastructure to secure the future of the arts.

She believes the arts are among the most "disrespected" subjects on the curriculum in schools, and says attitudes need to change to encourage more young people into artistic industries.

"Music is the backdrop for every memory. You can attach music to a person, a feeling, it can help you heal, it can help you get through your bad times and good days," she said.

"A world void of sound is a world void of colour and feeling… sound needs to be respected."

Chappell Roan can't be stopped.

Over the last 12 months, the 26-year-old has become the buzziest star in pop. A flamboyant, flame-haired sensation, whose songs are as colourful as they are raw.

Her debut album, released to little fanfare in 2023, has just topped the UK charts for a second time. Next week, she's up for six Grammy awards, including best new artist. And BBC Radio 1 have named her their Sound Of 2025.

Success has been all the sweeter because her former record label refused to release many of the songs that exploded onto the charts last year.

"They were like, 'This is not gonna work. We don't get it'," Roan tells Radio 1's Jack Saunders.

Reaching pop's A-list isn't just a vindication but a revolution.

The 26-year-old is the first female pop star to achieve mainstream success as an openly queer person, rather than coming out as part of their post-fame narrative.

On a more personal level, she's finally got the financial security to move into a house of her own, and acquire a rescue cat, named Cherub Lou.

"She's super tiny, her breath smells so bad, and she doesn't have a meow," the singer dotes.

If kitten ownership is a benefit of fame, Roan has bristled at the downsides.

She has spoken out against abusive fans, calling out "creepy behaviour" from people who harass her in airport queues and "stalk" her parents' home. Last September, she went viral for cussing a photographer who'd been shouting abuse at stars on the red carpet of the MTV Awards.

"I was looking around, and I was like, 'This is what people are OK with all the time? And I'm supposed to act normal? This is not normal. This is crazy'," she recalls.

The incident made headlines. British tabloids called her outburst the "tantrum" of a "spoiled diva".

But Roan is unapologetic.

"I've been responding that way to disrespect my whole life - but now there are cameras on me, and I also happen to be a pop star, and those things don't match. It's like oil and water."

Roan says musicians are trained to be obedient. Standing up for yourself is portrayed as whining or ingratitude, and rejecting convention comes at a cost.

"I think, actually, I'd be more successful if I was OK wearing a muzzle," she laughs.

"If I were to override more of my basic instincts, where my heart is going, 'Stop, stop, stop, you're not OK', I would be bigger.

"I would be way bigger... And I would still be on tour right now."

Indeed, Roan rejected the pressure of extending her 2024 tour to protect her physical and mental health. She credits that resolve to her late grandfather.

"There's something he said that I think about in every move I make with my career. There are always options."

"So when someone says, 'Do this concert because you'll never get offered that much money ever again', it's like, who cares?

"If I don't feel like doing this right now, there are always options. There is not a scarcity of opportunity. I think about that all the time."

As fans will know by now, Roan was born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz and raised in the Bible Belt town of Willard, Missouri.

The oldest of four children, she aspired to be an actress – but, for a long time, it seemed her future would be in sport. She ran at state-competition level, and almost went to college for cross-country.

Then she entered a singing contest at the age of 13 and won. Before long, she'd written her first song, about a crush on a Mormon boy who wasn't allowed to date outside his faith.

She took her stage name as a tribute to her grandfather Dennis K Chappell and his favourite song, a Western ballad called The Strawberry Roan.

"He was very funny and very smart," she recalls. "And I don't think he ever questioned my ability.

"A lot of people were like, 'You should go completely country', or, 'You should try Christian music'. And he never told me to do anything.

"He was the only person that was like, 'You don't need a plan B. Just do it'."

Eventually, one of her compositions, a gothic ballad called Die Young, caught the attention of Atlantic Records, which signed her at the age of just 17.

Moving to LA, she recorded and released her first EP, School Nights, in 2017. It was a solid but unremarkable affair, steeped in the sounds of Lana Del Rey and Lorde.

Roan only found a sound of her own when a group of gay friends took her to a drag bar.

"I walked into that club in West Hollywood and it was like heaven," she told the BBC last year. "It was amazing to see all these people who were happy and confident in their bodies.

"And the go-go dancers! I was enthralled. I couldn't stop watching them. I was like, 'I have to do that'."

She didn't become a dancer, but she did write a song imagining what it would be like to be one and how her mother would react. Roan called it Pink Pony Club after a strip bar in her home town.

"That song changed everything," she says. "It put me in a new category.

"I never thought I could actually be a 'pop star girl' and Pink Pony forced me into that."

Her label disagreed. They refused to release Pink Pony Club for two years. Shortly after they relented, Roan was dropped in a round of pandemic-era cost-cutting.

Bruised but not broken, she went back home and spent the next year serving coffee in a drive-through doughnut shop.

"It absolutely had a positive impact on me," she says. "You have the knowledge of what it's like to clean a public restroom. That's very important."

The period was transformational in other ways. She saved her earnings, had her heart broken by a person "with pale blue eyes", moved back to Los Angeles, and gave herself a year to make it.

It might have taken a little longer than that, but she hit the ground running.

During her exile, Roan had stayed in touch with her Pink Pony Club co-writer, Daniel Nigro.

He was also working with another up-and-coming singer called Olivia Rodrigo and, when her career took off, Roan got a courtside seat, supporting Rodrigo on tour and providing backing vocals on her second album, Guts.

More importantly, Nigro used the momentum to sign Roan to his own record label and ensure the release of her debut album in September 2023.

At first, it seemed like Roan's original label had been right. Sales were disappointing and audiences were slow to catch on because her in-your-face queer anthems were out of step with the trend for whispery, confessional pop.

But those songs came to life on stage. Big, fun and designed for audience participation, they're taken to new heights by Roan's powerhouse voice and flamboyant stage persona.

"A drag queen does not get on stage to calm people down," she says. "A drag queen does not say things to flatter people. A queen makes you blush, you know what I mean? Expect the same energy at my show."

Sure enough, it was a live-streamed appearance at last year's Coachella Festival that pushed her into the upper echelons of pop.

Dressed in a PVC crop top that declared "Eat Me", she played the packed Gobi tent like a headliner, strutting purposefully across the stage and coaching the audience in the campy choreography for Hot To Go.

Then she stared directly into the camera and dedicated a song to her ex.

"Bitch I know you're watching… and all those horrible things happening to you are karma."

The clip went viral and, before long, her career did, too.

By the summer, all of her shows had been upgraded. Festivals kept having to move her to bigger stages. When she played Lollapalooza in August, she drew the event's biggest ever daytime crowd.

"It just takes a decade," she says. "That's what I tell everyone. 'If you're OK with it taking 10 years, then you're good'."

As fans discovered her debut album, Roan also released a standalone single - a sarcastic slice of synth-pop called Good Luck Babe, which became her breakout hit.

"I don't even know if I've ever said this in an interview, but it was originally called Good Luck, Jane," she reveals.

"I wanted it to be about me falling in love with my best friend, and then her being like, 'Ha ha ha, I don't like you back, I like boys.'

"And it was like, 'OK, well, good luck with that, Jane'."

A masterclass in pop storytelling, Good Luck Babe has a proper three-act structure, with a killer pay-off in the middle eight and a chorus you just can't shake.

Still, Roan was shocked by its success.

"I just threw it out, like, I don't know what this is going to do – and it carried the whole year!"

The question, of course, is what the star does next, now that she's the Sound of 2025.

She's already previewed two new songs, The Subway and The Giver, in concert – but all she will reveal about a second album is that she's "more reluctant to be sad or dark".

"It feels so good to party," she explains.

Looking back at the last 12 months, she's philosophical about what it means to be pop's hottest new commodity.

"A lot of people think fame is the pinnacle of success, because what more could you possibly want than adoration?"

Roan does admit that the admiration of strangers is more "addictive" than she'd expected.

"Like, I understand why I'm so scared to lose this feeling.

"It's so scary to think that one day people will not care about you the same way as they do right now - and I think [that idea] lives in women's brains a lot different than men's."

Ultimately, she decides, success and failure are "out of my control". Instead, she wants to make good choices.

"If I can look back and say, 'I did not crumble under the weight of expectation, and I did not stand for being abused or blackmailed', [then] at least I stayed true to my heart," she says.

"Like I said before, there are always options."

Chappell Roan was named BBC Radio 1's Sound Of 2025, by a panel of more than 180 musicians, critics and music industry experts.

The top five, in order, were:

Unless there is a sudden and staggering plot twist, Prince Harry's legal battle against British tabloids for allegedly unlawfully intruding into his life reaches its most important moment on Tuesday when his claims against The Sun and the long-closed News of the World, come to trial.

The plot twist would be a settlement of his mammoth case against their parent, News Group Newspapers [NGN], the British press arm of the media empire founded by Rupert Murdoch.

Is it likely? You would get better odds on Harry and Meghan announcing a weekly lifestyle column for The Sun on Sunday.

This will be the first time that News Group Newspapers has had to defend itself against allegations that its journalists and executives across the whole organisation were involved in or knew about unlawful newsgathering techniques.

If it were to lose, and lose badly, a finding from the court of corporate-level wrongdoing would be in stark contrast to a longstanding defence that phone hacking was limited to bad apples in one now-closed title.

The prince's allegations of tabloid wrongdoing date back to 1996. Harry and his brother Prince William first became aware they may have been targeted in 2006.

Back then, texting was still in its infancy and everybody left voicemails - and some tabloid journalists realised it was rather easy to listen in.

Clive Goodman, a News of the World journalist, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, were arrested, and later jailed, for intercepting voicemails on phones belonging to the princes' aides.

Prince Harry says as the scandal deepened, he held on for NGN to settle Royal Family claims under a "secret agreement" to avoid embarrassment in court. NGN's lawyers have said this is "Alice in Wonderland stuff" - and the court has ruled it hasn't seen evidence of such a backroom deal.

All these years on, the Duke of Sussex seems in no mood to give up on what has become a crusade against tabloid journalism. And so his case is going ahead - and what happens over the next two months may define both the prince's legacy and the future of a British journalism institution.

NGN long ago apologised for unlawful practices at the News of the World and closed it down in 2011. It denies similar claims against The Sun - and the duke's wider allegation of a corporate-wide cover-up.

It has settled cases brought by some 1,300 claimants, to the tune of around £1bn including legal costs.

That means it has seen off potential trials from people who say the newspapers ran stories that could have only been written with access to private or confidential sources of information that could not have been publicly known.

Those settlements left just two claimants - one of them Prince Harry.

When he launched his claim, he alleged that more than 200 articles published by NGN between 1996 and 2011 contained information gathered by illegal means. The trial will look at a sample of around 30 stories in detail.

Some of those will cover ground trodden in his successful Mirror Group case in 2023 and, just like in that case, he will give evidence in person.

There will be hours of analysis of how the Sun got scoops such as "Emotional Harry rang Chelsy at midnight" - a story it ran almost twenty years ago to the day about his then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.

There will be further separate allegations from the second claimant, Lord (Tom) Watson. The former Labour MP says his phone was targeted around the time he was investigating the Murdoch newspapers at the height of the scandal almost 15 years ago.

Mr Justice Fancourt will decide if any of the NGN articles were the product of unlawful information gathering, such as information tricked or "blagged" out of phone companies by private investigators.

In Prince Harry's case, he will not rule on whether there was any phone hacking because Prince Harry ran out of legal time to bring those allegations to trial.

None of this is going to be simple in court.

The judge had repeatedly expressed his frustration, referring to the two sides as entrenched well-resourced armies refusing to give any ground to each other.

And at no stage has Prince Harry looked like he was going to settle, despite the enormous financial hit he faces by not doing so.

If a claimant turns down an offer of settlement and is later awarded less in damages by a judge, they have to pay the legal costs of both sides.

Prince Harry has been very open about the hit he will take and why he was pressing ahead.

"The goal is accountability. It's really that simple," he told an audience at a New York Times event in December.

News Group has, in simple terms, three lines of defence. It will firstly argue that Harry has run out of time to bring allegations of unlawful information gathering.

This saw off his mobile phone hacking claim.

Secondly, its lawyers will test, article-by-article, the duke's claims that the information in them came from dodgy sources.

Thirdly, News Group has lined up witnesses to rebut Prince Harry and Lord Watson's broader allegation that the top brass knew what was going on and were party to the mass destruction of purportedly incriminating records in 2011.

While the celebrity focus will inevitably be on the prince when he goes into the witness box, that third allegation of a cover up is the most important element of this trial.

While the hit to Prince Harry's wallet will be big, the damage to NGN's reputation - and that of its executives - would be greater still if the court finds they were involved.

The executives the claimants will accuse of wrongdoing include the current CEO, Rebekah Brooks. She was found not guilty of conspiracy to hack voicemails in the seismic 2014 trial that ended with the jailing of Andy Coulson, her former colleague, News of the World editor and David Cameron's communications chief.

Another is Will Lewis. He played a key role in managing the hacking crisis in 2011. He is now the CEO of the Washington Post - an appointment that has been opposed by many at the newspaper because of this association.

They and others deny wrongdoing.

Will they be giving evidence? A spokesperson for NGN said: "Both claimants allege unlawful destruction of emails by News International between 2010-2011. This allegation is wrong, unsustainable, and is strongly denied. NGN will be calling a number of witnesses including technologists, lawyers and senior staff to defeat the claim."

Exactly what evidence Prince Harry brings to prove this claim - and what NGN says in defence - may define the entire battle.

Tuesday really is the beginning of the end. And someone is going to lose - and lose big.