3 w. ago Astronaut Amanda Nguyen says backlash from Blue Origin flight left her depressed

In a statement shared on Instagram, Nguyen says she faced a ‘tsunami of harassment’ after the all-female spaceflightAmanda Nguyen, the Vietnamese-American astronaut who was part of the all-female Blue Origin spaceflight, has opened up about her depression after she experienced a “tsunami of harassment” after the trip, in which she became the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.Nguyen, 34, was part of April’s historic 11-minute flight, whose crew included pop star Katy Perry, broadcast journalist Gayle King, and journalist and wife of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez. The flight was heavily criticized for its environmental impact and critics questioned its purpose and use of resources. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago 2025 was the year we grew tired of celebrity for celebrity’s sake | Nadia Khomami

Being blasted into space or taking over Venice no longer cuts it. The rich and famous are being punished for their conspicuous vacuityWhen Katy Perry and five other women were launched into space in Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket, no doubt they expected to be celebrated as trailblazers. Cast your mind back to April, and the event was getting wall-to-wall news coverage. The crew, also including Bezos’s then-fiancee Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King, were in space for about 11 minutes, during which Perry sang a rendition of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World and revealed the setlist for her Lifetimes tour. On their return, the pop star kissed the ground and showed a daisy to the camera – a tribute to her daughter, Daisy. Well, talk about crashing back down to earth. Instead of being hailed as a giant leap for 21st-century feminism, the voyage turned into a colossal PR failure. It was ridiculed for being tone-deaf, an out-of-touch luxury ride for the super-rich during ...

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3 w. ago Astronaut reveals depression after an 'avalanche of misogyny' following Blue Origin all

Amanda Nguyen, 34, has opened up about the depression she felt amid the backlash to her April space flight.

Politics

3 w. ago Astronaut Amanda Nguyen opens up about depression after Blue Origin spaceflight launched a ‘tsunami of harassment’

Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Lauren Sánchez Bezos were on the 11-minute trip with Nguyen

Events

3 w. ago The year in patriarchy: Taylor Swift, Trump 2.0 and the Epstein files | Arwa Mahdawi

The year 2025 saw a Swift engagement, a rapid rollback of rights and a slow release of the heavily redacted Epstein filesThe year 2025 would have been far better if we could have sent a few billionaires and world leaders into intergalactic exile. Instead, we had to make do with Katy Perry spending 11 minutes on the edge of space as part of Blue Origin’s all-female crewed mission. Perry promised us all that, in service of women’s empowerment, the crew would “put the ‘ass’ in astronaut” and “make space and science glam”. Truly, one giant leap for womankind!Space may have got glam, but it was another glum year for many on Earth. The war in Ukraine continued, with increasing numbers of women volunteering to fight. The civil war in Sudan raged on, with the UN urging the world not to ignore harrowing details of targeted sexual violence, torture, and abductions from the region. The slaughter in Sudan is so extreme that the blood can even be seen from space. Although I’m not sure the billio...

Politics

4 w. ago Biggest showbiz stories of 2025: From Coldplay’s KissCam to Katy Perry in space

In April, pop star Katy Perry was a part of the six-woman crew on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket who embarked on a trip to space.

Politics