Ed’s first Xmas No 1 with Perfect
Ed Sheeran has capped a hugely successful year by winning 2017’s Christmas No 1, with his song Perfect. “This is an actual dream come true and I’m very proud and happy,” Sheeran said, wishing his fans “a very merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy new year”.
He benefited from — or perhaps shamelessly exploited — chart rules that count streams and sales of multiple versions of the same song towards its chart placing. Sheeran released six versions of Perfect to aid its chances of getting the festive top spot: The original, an acoustic version, remixes by Robin Schulz and Mike Perry, and two duet versions with A-list names: Beyoncé and Andrea Bocelli.
Sheeran also features on the No 2 song, River by Eminem. The rapper scored the Christmas No 1 album for Revival, its commercial fortunes left undented by generally negative reviews.
The original version of Perfect is taken from Sheeran’s album ÷, which is the biggest-selling record in the UK this year, and features other enormous hits in Shape of You and Galway Girl.
A campaign to get Wham!’s last Christmas to No 1, 23 years after it was pipped to the top by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s ChristmasIJ — and one year on from the death of George Michael — didn’t quite succeed. The song reached No 3, with Mariah Carey’s festive perennial All I Want for Christmas Is You at No 4.
Nelly sued for alleged sexual assault
Rapper Nelly has been sued for sexual assault and for defamation against the alleged victim, after he publicly denied the accusations. He was arrested and briefly jailed in October in Auburn, Washington, after being accused of raping the 22-year-old University of Washington student on his tour bus. He denied the allegations via his attorney. The criminal case against him collapsed last week, after prosecutors said they couldn’t “proceed or fully assess the merits of the case” without the cooperation of the victim, who said she wanted to stop the investigation.
But after Nelly, who was born Cornell Haynes Jr, publicly accused the woman of fabricating the story, she decided to file the lawsuit against him. “She didn’t want to be a fighter at all,” said her lawyer, Karen Koehler. “She didn’t want anyone to know what happened to her … She honestly decided to stand up for herself after that last horrible post they made against her.” Nelly’s lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, said the suit, which they plan to counter with a suit of their own, “comes as no surprise … We always believed her accusation was motivated by greed.”
In the early 00s, the rapper became one of the most successful in the US, with his first three albums — Country Grammar, Nellyville and the double release Sweat and Suit — all reaching the top of the Billboard chart. He has only released a couple of singles since his last album in 2013, but continues to perform live.
May calls for woman to play Bond
Theresa May has backed calls for a woman to play James Bond, revealing she was looking forward to watching Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor Who on Christmas Day. The UK Prime Minister said she enjoyed watching the BBC programme and heralded the decision to give the iconic role to Whittaker as “girl power”.
“I do like watching Doctor Who at Christmas,” she told reporters on board her RAF Voyager plane en route to give a festive address to troops at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. “I think it’s a great move forward for girl power that there is going to be a female Doctor Who. And one day there should be a female James Bond.”
But the Prime Minister remained coy over which actor she would prefer to take on the role of 007 after Daniel Craig, but tipped War and Peace star James Norton for the part. “I don’t know who is being lined up. I read the other day that James Norton was being talked about as a possible James Bond. I think he did an interview where he said he’d quite like to,” she said.
