The Tim Westwood School Of Sexting

The hottest, most mysterious celebrity beef of the moment? Phillip Schofield and Amanda Holden.

We have no idea what’s behind it (though we’re always open to a theory) but at the Pride Of Britain awards last week Holden was making it explicitly clear to anyone within earshot that she didn’t want to be put anywhere near Schofield, ideally not even in the same room as him.

She was also quite vocal about the fact that she’d had two Cosmopolitans as well though, so maybe she didn’t realise quite how loudly she was talking.

In front of a gaggle of tabloid journalists.

Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold is often held up as an example of the new breed of England footballer. Humble, unflashy, thoughtful. An enthusiastic chess player who put in a decent showing against grandmaster Magnus Carlsen.

Trent has tried his hand at being a shagger, but we don’t really think he’s cut out for it. He spent a chunk of his downtime during the World Cup sexting a pregnant woman who had approached him to record a Father’s Day message for her boyfriend.

The best he could manage was “Do u like cum inside u? I’ll do it inside u… while ur pregnant”.

Which presenter is very much enjoying his relocation to Salford’s MediaCity? The flat he keeps up there away from his wife and kids allows him to do something that he’s clearly very passionate about: helping the young men in his industry get (a)head in their careers.

A crew member who worked with Danny Dyer on an acting gig was tasked with getting him a fresh pair of plain boxers for a scene he was shooting (he couldn’t wear his own Calvin Klein’s as they couldn’t have branded clothes on screen).

She averted her eyes while he pulled his pants down to change, but couldn’t help but hear the question: “Are these going to fit? Because I’ve got massive balls.”

Kanye West was out in Uganda recording his new album recently and, behind the scenes, things went about as smoothly as you’d expect.

Having set up a studio in a luxury safari resort, Kanye got his security team to arrange a trip out to see a bit more of the wider country. A few hours into this trip, Kanye became agitated and demanded to be flown back to his studio, immediately.

However, night was falling and his security guys didn’t know the region well. They told him they couldn’t secure a plane back that quickly and guarantee his safety, so he’d have to wait until morning. Kanye wasn’t having any of that, so went ahead and sourced some local guys who said they could get him out easily (at great expense).

Alarmed that their rich, famous client was about to walk into a hugely sketchy situation, his actual security team refused to let him leave with the new guys he’d hired, so a big Tarantino-esque stand-off between both security teams ensued.

The stand-off went on so long that morning finally arrived, Kanye’s agitation subsided and they got out without any further incident.

Wiping his knob on the office copies of CDs to express his distaste for the artists. Getting his colleagues to squish their breasts together to make their cleavage ask him questions. Introducing himself to strangers as the “only man to have shagged both Kylie AND Dannii Minogue”.

Are their no limits to Neil Fox’s appetite for banter? It seems not.

Back in the day, he used to have a leather jacket he’d wear when out riding his motorbike which read, in very bold letters across the back, “IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE WIFE’S FALLEN OFF”.

Much like Zia McCabe from the Dandy Warhols, Dani Behr has also made the switch into American real estate. She works as a realtor in LA now, selling homes to the rich and famous.

What brought about this change in career? Her TV work dried up after a rather embarrassing incident.

Dani Behr was a very determined shagger back in her prime, known in the business as “Mountie” – because she always got her man. Often those men were married TV producers and Dani would routinely tape their pillow talk, post-shag, so that she had a little leverage when it came to job negotiations.

The trick worked quite nicely for a while, until someone got wise to it and turned the tables. They covertly taped her slagging off all her ex-employers and the resulting audio was so damning she fled the country to start afresh in America.

[See her agency profile]

Max Clifford had a reputation for being a master communicator, but it wasn’t that well-deserved. A hack who was once sent to Max’s office to meet a kiss’n’tell client got a glimpse of his telephone manner in action.

The girl was running late so after about 15 minutes Max called her mobile and left a shirty voicemail. After 30, he called again and left another, even more curt one. After an hour, he completely lost his rag and called for a third time, barking “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE PLAYING AT. I’VE SET THIS UP FOR YOU. THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS GET TO MY FUCKING OFFICE.”

When she eventually did arrive, Max went ballistic at her, asking why she wasn’t answering his calls. She said she didn’t get any calls. Max told her she did and recited her full phone number for her to hear.

Only, it wasn’t hers.

Cue Max calling the number again to leave one final voicemail: “Hi, I’m really sorry. This is Max Clifford. I don’t know who you are but I’ve left some very abusive voicemails for you. Could you please ignore them?”

Giles Coren managed to talk himself hoarse defending the vegan-baiting Waitrose Magazine editor William Sitwell last week.

A known wit like Giles will doubtless have seen the irony in him having to turn down interviews after losing his voice by talking all day about how journalists can’t speak freely in this day and age – but it’s a shame his voice couldn’t have held out just a touch longer.

If it had, he might have been able to mention that he and William Sitwell were actually in on a business together: Pasta Evangelists.

He was probably just on the verge of mentioning that little detail too if it hadn’t been for that pesky frog in his throat.

We’ve signed up with micropayment experts Agate to bring you some longer-form, multi-part Popbitch stories which delve much deeper into some of the biggest, weirdest and most significant celebrity scandal stories of the 21st century.

A number of our big stories have become relevant again over the course of the last week, so there’s never been a better time to sign up for an Agate wallet and blast through the whole lot.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAN MEDIA INC: A four-part history of the National Enquirer that we published last October – which is worth revisiting now that Roger Stone is finally in the sights of the Mueller investigation.
[Read it here]

A TALE OF TWO STRIKES: A four-parter on the outsized effect the two Hollywood Writers’ strikes of 1988 and 2007 have had on 2018 politics and pop culture – which is worth revisiting now that Florida politics is on a knife-edge, Trump and CNN have reignited their fight, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders is using InfoWars-edited videos to smear Jim Acosta.
[Read it here]

SYCO PATHS: Our latest three-parter on the strange interconnected careers of Simon Cowell, Max Clifford, Jonathan King and Mark Williams-Thomas – which is worth revisiting after ITV confirmed there are no plans for series three of Cowell and Williams-Thomas’s true-crime series, The Investigator.
[Read it here]

Looking forward to the Chim Shippers pulling this new interview apart
[Cheryl meets Jessie Ware]

Bingo the Otter might just be the cutest otter to date
[See Bingo’s YouTube channel]

Headline of the week
[Read on the Mirror]

Fancy a night in a posh Cotswolds hotel? Our mates at The Rectory are offering 100 rooms at £100…
[Book at The Rectory Hotel]

Stephen Wright, the Daily Mail’s Crime Editor, talks Stephen Lawrence, Leveson, police corruption and investigating gangs on the latest Media Masters podcast.
[Download/Listen at Media Masters]

Is Sia the 21st century’s most influential artist?
[Read on NPR]

This browser game has a great 80s in-play soundtrack
[Play Detective Moustachio]

Our new Soho neighbour, the Old Compton Brasserie, is offering a 50% discount at lunch in November. Just email bookings@oldcomptonbrasserie.co.uk and quote Popbitch (Sunday to Fridays only) to get half price on your food bill.
[Check out Old Compton Brasserie]