New Zealand Woman’s Weekly

Quiet on set! It turns out Meghan, Duchess of Sussex isn’t the only royal family member to enjoy being on a TV set! Queen Camilla, 77, looked perfectly at home during a visit to the set of UK drama Trigger Point in London. Camilla, who this week celebrates the 20th anniversary of her wedding to King Charles, 76, happily chatted to actor Vicky McClure, 41, who plays the lead role in the show about a bomb disposal expert. After getting an up-close look at a real 13kg bomb suit, the Queen was given the chance to get behind the cameras and she also took charge of the clapperboard to mark the start of filming a new scene of the show’s third season. Later in the day, Camilla attended a glitzy…

I admit it, this week’s cover story brought tears to my eyes because I could relate to it on so many levels. Wendy Petrie, a beloved newsreader for many years, was very publicly made redundant in 2020, just as I was, though less publicly. With her children nearly all leaving the nest, there is that inevitable sense of loss as the house quietens. You remember the laughter, the little things that used to annoy you and their very presence. I know every parent goes through this and I’m sure some sail through it, but I felt it keenly. Yet from these knocks and the passing years, you discover a newfound strength and confidence. This is Wendy’s year to “diversify” – and my year of saying yes. I remember reading stories…

In the middle of her almost-empty nest, Wendy Petrie has found her empty “next”. With her two daughters, Addison and Liv, studying overseas on sporting scholarships, the popular broadcaster still has teenage son Zach at home, but life lately has suddenly offered up a lot more freedom. She’s trying her hand at travel writing, signed up for her first ocean swim in May, and is realising there’s time for her and husband Ross Peebles to enjoy some sweet, child-free dates again. “When you have three kids and busy jobs, it’s easy to get caught up in the details of everyday life,” says Wendy, 53. “Until one day, you and hubby are looking at each other, going, ‘Wow, the kids don’t need us as much.’ “A lot of our friends are…

Nigella Lawson is known as television’s sexiest celebrity chef – but she begs to differ. The food guru, 65, says rather than the gastronomic seductress she appears to be, she is in fact lazy, never does her hair and is covered in burns! “I don’t get the whole sexy thing,” Nigella laments. “Often, I’m not wearing make-up at all. If I’ve done my own hair, I don’t brush it. I mess it up. Instead of brushing it, I tip my head upside down. “I do try to do it sometimes, but I’m also lazy. If people recognise me, I’m astonished! “I was on the [London transport] Tube the other day and someone said, ‘Is it you?’ I said, ‘God, I’m looking such a fright. I’m almost offended to even be…

Imagine no Abbey Road! Beatles legend John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono met in 1966 and when the iconic foursome split in 1970, the same year their last album Abbey Road was released, Yoko was blamed for wrecking the band. Now, a new biography on Yoko says the Beatles might have broken up sooner if John hadn’t been allowed to have the woman he nicknamed “Mother Superior” with him in the studio. “There’s a version of the Beatles story in which there would be no Abbey Road or Let It Be without Yoko,” says the book’s author David Sheff, who has been friends with Yoko since 1980. In the biography, David covers Yoko’s childhood. At the age of 12, her parents and siblings left her in bed with a…

Ed Sheeran has been on a time-travelling mission. The Shape of You singer, 34, fought a plagiarism lawsuit between 2018 and 2022, and was required to hand over all his old devices, including a phone he’d switched off in 2015. The experience, he says, was like “going into a time machine” with text messages from two friends who’d since died, an argument with an ex-girlfriend and conversations with a family member he hadn’t spoken to in 10 years. “It really, really spun me out,” Ed said during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The song he wrote about it, Old Phone, is on his forthcoming album Play. Ed won the lawsuit and since switching off that old device, he’s tied the knot with childhood friend Cherry Seaborn,…