Lee Hurley
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hleehurley.com
Lee Hurley
@hleehurley.com
21K followers 1.1K following 15K posts
Writer. Media critic. He/him. I mostly moan about the media, politics & Arsenal. DailyCannon.com Co-founder transwrites.world. Trustee @essehouse.bsky.social Subscribe to The Trans Agenda here - transagenda.info [newsletter on a break til the new year]
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hleehurley.com
This is how the media mark Trans Day of Remembrance in the UK
Times front page - Trans guide to protect women is left in limbo Labour sits on plan to preserve ‘safety and dignity’ by letting staff turn people away based on looks Geraldine Scott - Assistant Political Editor Bridget Phillipson was given the guidance by the EHRC three months ago EXCLUSIVE Transgender people could be banned from single-sex spaces based on how they look, according to new equalities guidance seen by The Times. The document from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was handed to ministers almost three months ago but has not been published by Bridget Phillipson, the minister for women and equalities. The Times has been passed a copy of the final guidance, which aims to preserve the dignity and safety of women, by Whitehall figures concerned that Labour is delaying publication to avoid potential criticism. Double page spread in the Times - From gender critical beliefs to boxing: what the guidance says Geraldine Scott - Assistant Political Editor A trans rights protest outside parliament in April after the Supreme Court ruled that the term sex in the Equality Act referred to biological sex Next image › The equality watchdog has set out sweeping new guidance on how to apply equality protections for the first time in more than a decade, with a focus on how transgender people should be treated. The 300-page document, seen by The Times but not yet published, was prompted by a Supreme Court judgment in April that ruled the terms “sex” and “woman” in the Equality Act referred to biological sex. Here we outline the key elements. Single-sex spaces The most significant change is a departure from previous interpretations that transgender people should generally be treated in line with their gender identity in single-sex settings such as changing rooms or hospital wards. Previously it was thought that excluding a transgender woman from a single-sex setting could amount to discrimination. The new guidance states clearly that trans people may be excluded from single-sex spaces that do not correspond to their biological sex when it is a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”, such as protecting privacy, dignity or safety. Reflecting the Supreme Court ruling, the guidance said that for the purposes of the Equality Act “a person’s sex remains their biological sex, whether they have a GRC [gender recognition certificate] or not”. The guidance adds: “A trans man with a GRC is a woman and a trans woman with a GRC is a man, for the purposes of the act.”
November 20, 2025 at 7:35 AM
hleehurley.com
"Sources at the college insist that a number of allegations against Mr Wright were substantiated and that he was found to have made discriminatory comments, some of which were directed at pupils."
Mail front page - A few ill-advised remarks and a public school teacher who lost his job and life EXCLUSIVE: John was fired after saying ‘no gum, no gays’ about a trip to Singapore (where chewing gum is banned) and Malaysia (where homosexuality’s illegal)
November 19, 2025 at 8:40 AM
hleehurley.com
Asylum seekers aren't crying and terrified all the time and that makes the Daily Express mad
Express front page - full page blurry image of 4 people possibly dancing with headline "IT'S RAVING MA" EXCLUSIVE- Anger as asylum seeked are filmed partying at former RAF base.
November 19, 2025 at 8:37 AM
hleehurley.com
Graham Linehan in the papers again crying someone else he used to be friends with hates him [Telegraph]
Father Ted star O’hanlon is the latest to smear me, says Linehan The Daily Telegraph18 Nov 2025By India Mctaggart ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT Graham Linehan was arrested by five armed police officers GRAHAM LINEHAN has fallen out with a former Father Ted star over his views on single-sex spaces. The 57-year-old co-creator of the 1990s sitcom has accused Ardal O’hanlon, who played the inept Father Dougal Mcguire, of trying to “smear” him after the actor said he was “baffled” by Linehan’s “confrontational” gender-critical campaigning. Linehan, who was arrested at Heathrow in September by five armed police officers over gender-critical messages posted on social media, said O’hanlon had become “the latest ex-colleague to smear me in the press”. The Irish comedy writer, who has now been told he will face no further action by police, wrote on X: “I just called him and he apparently disagrees with me that women deserve single-sex spaces, fair sports, etc. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Of course when I pressed, he said it was the ‘way’ I did things. Like Amelia Bullmore, another actor I never did anything but support, blaming me for my own harassment.”
November 18, 2025 at 8:37 AM
hleehurley.com
"Trump gunman ‘was a non-binary radical’"

Front page of today's Telegraph

(main article is from page 13)
Trump gunman ‘was a non-binary radical’ Thomas Crooks identified as non-binary and may have fetishised cartoon animals on niche website The Daily Telegraph18 Nov 2025By Connor Stringer WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT Crooks’ views allegedly shifted from far Right to radical Left before the shooting A man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump may have identified as nonbinary and been radicalised online, his social media accounts suggest. Digital profiles linked to Thomas Crooks, whose bullet grazed Mr Trump’s ear after he tried to shoot him during a rally in Pennsylvania last year, suggest he used “they/them” pronouns. The 20-year-old’s online activity also appears to show that he was part of a “furry” community, which shares images of scantily clad cartoon animals. A MAN who tried to assassinate Donald Trump may have identified as nonbinary and been radicalised online, his social media accounts suggest. Digital profiles linked to Thomas Crooks, whose bullet grazed Mr Trump’s ear after he tried to shoot him from a rooftop during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year suggest he used “they/them” pronouns. A non-binary person is someone who does not identify as any particular gender. Crooks, who was shot dead at the scene by a Secret Service agent, killed an audience member and injured two others in the attack. The 20-year-old registered Republican, whose background has remained something of a mystery, reportedly had two accounts, “epicmicrowave” and “theepicmicrowave,” on the website Deviantart. The platform, where amateur artists can share and critique work, also has an active “furry” community. A furry is a person with an interest in anthropomorphic animals that is sometimes sexual. Crooks’ activity appears to show he used non-binary pronouns and had an interest in scantily clad cartoon characters with muscular male physiques and female heads, according to the New York Post. The discovery is the most detailed insight into Crooks’ background, which has become the subject of various conspiracy theories. Last Thursday, Tucker Carlson the former Fox News political commentator who now hosts his own show on social media, accused the FBI of covering up Crooks’ digital footprint and published what he claimed was evidence of Crooks’ journey from Trump supporter to radical Leftist. The FBI has maintained Crooks acted alone in the plot. Yet Carlson claims Crooks interacted with a member of the Nordic Resistance Movement, the Norwegian neo-nazi group, on Youtube. The user, Willy_tepes, appeared to encourage Crooks to commit political violence, Mr Carlson claims. Writing to Crooks on Aug 4 2020, the account said: “If a gun and a badge is all that is needed, then authority obviously comes from the barrel of a gun.
November 18, 2025 at 8:34 AM
hleehurley.com
The full article from today's Times
Girl told she must keep surname of rapist father Ben Ellery - Crime Editor A five-year-old girl must keep the surname of the father who raped her mother, after a High Court judge upheld a ruling that it formed a key part of the child’s identity and heritage. Mr Justice Peel ruled that the child, known as D, must continue to carry the name despite the history of serious domestic abuse against her mother. D’s mother had argued that her daughter being tied to the name of a man who raped and threatened her (the mother) was retraumatising and contrary to the child’s best interests. The child has not seen her father face to face since December 2021. Charlotte Proudman, the barrister representing the mother, said: “It just shows that a rapist’s rights are more important than [the] victim’s.” In 2023 the family court’s fact-finding proceedings found four “very serious” incidents of sexual abuse against the mother between 2015 and 2017, including rape, “despite her saying she wanted to wait” until marriage. The proceedings concluded that the father refused to stop intercourse when the mother cried in pain and said “no” and that he was threatening and verbally abusive during the breakdown of the relationship. The court heard that during one argument in September 2021, the father told the mother: “There is no guarantee that if I come back here that I will not get so stressed out that I decide to pick up the knife, kill your parents first in their sleep and then kill you and [D].” Despite the gravity of the findings, Judge Laura Moys, a family recorder, ruled in March that changing D’s surname would “constitute a further rupture in the link she has to her father in a way that is not justified or proportionate”. The judge found that the child’s surname “is a part of her identity and provides an important connection to her father and paternal heritage”. Both judges criticised the father’s lack of insight. Moys found he continued to deny the established findings, referring to them as “allegations of sexual harassment”. The mother argued on appeal that the judge had failed to give sufficient weight to the impact of the continued use of the father’s surname, but Peel said Moys “clearly records” the seriousness of the abuse and the mother’s trauma before reaching her conclusion. The appeal court refused permission to challenge the surname decision, finding “no real prospect of success”. The father was ordered to pay £5,000 of the mother’s £13,000 costs. Proudman told The Times: “This is abusive, state-sanctioned harm ...[It] is abuse facilitated by the court.”
November 17, 2025 at 11:13 AM
hleehurley.com
"Did the BBC kill Diana?" [Daily Telegraph]
"Did the BBC kill Diana? It's not a theory we should scoff at. Lucy Denyer, Telegraph
November 17, 2025 at 9:47 AM
hleehurley.com
"Just protecting women and girls" [Daily Mail]
Online safety for girls now even worse Daily Mail17 Nov 2025 SOCIAL media firms need to do more to keep girls and young women safe online, the former head of the UK’S cyber security agency has warned. Felicity Oswald, former chief executive at the National Cyber Security Centre, said they were not doing enough to protect the most vulnerable, with many cutting online safety budgets. As the new head of Girlguiding, she is urging tech firms to help stamp out misogyny online, saying: ‘Trends are getting worse. It’s really clear that girls have a hard time online.’ A survey of 2,500 girls by Girlguiding found 26 per cent of those aged 13 to 18 have seen a sexualised deep fake of themselves, a friend or a celebrity. Girlguiding is also gathering signatures for an open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, calling on the Prime Minister to take action to keep girls safe from misogyny online.
November 17, 2025 at 9:39 AM
hleehurley.com
"SHABANA Mahmood was warned last night that her crackdown on asylum seekers faced being thwarted by Leftwing lawyers and MPS." [Mail front page]
LAWYERS AND LABOUR MPS TO TORPEDO MAHMOOD’S ASYLUM PLAN Home Secretary warned Left-wing opposition will scupper crackdown on illegal migration Daily Mail 17 Nov 2025 By Martin Beckford Policy Editor
November 17, 2025 at 9:37 AM
hleehurley.com
This was last week
Shabana Mahmood, alongside Yvette Cooper, both dressed in black holding a wreath of poppies at the Cenotaph
November 17, 2025 at 9:24 AM
hleehurley.com
A man sits at a table sorting through piles of jewellery and personal valuables. The table is crowded with open boxes filled with rings, watches, brooches, pearls and other items taken from Holocaust victims, arranged for cataloguing inside a storage room.
November 17, 2025 at 8:56 AM
hleehurley.com
Sitting outside the Duke of York waiting on some friends and I'm in so many tourists' photos
Umbrella lights hanging outside the Duke of York, an old pub in Belfast down a little entry, that tourists love taking pictures of. There's a row of purple, blue, green, yellow, red and orange all hanging over the entry
November 15, 2025 at 6:21 PM
hleehurley.com
My friend is 50 this weekend and had to get her a card. She also lives on a farm. This is too perfect
A brown and white cow wearing a party had with pink balloons either side. The text in the front of the card says 'how now old cow'
November 14, 2025 at 3:00 PM
hleehurley.com
Nobody cares that Paul Givan ordered schools to (illegally) discriminate against trans kids.
Fiery debate at Stormont as bid to oust Givan fails Minister survives no-confidence vote over controversial Israel visit Belfast Telegraph11 Nov 2025BRETT CAMPBELL Stormont’s Education Minister has survived a bid to oust him from the Executive over his trip to Israel, despite a majority of MLAS supporting a no-confidence motion during a fiery debate. Paul Givan was accused of acting like a pantomime villain during the hostile Assemblysittingwhichsawtempersflare on all sides of the chamber yesterday. At one point the chaotic proceedings were interrupted by pro-palestine activists opposing what they described as “murder” and “genocide” in Gaza. Protesters shouted “Shame on you, minister” from the public gallery as elected representatives had their say on the motion brought by People Before Profit’s Gerry Carroll, who accused the DUP minister of failing to uphold his pledge of office and comply with the ministerial code of conduct by using departmental resources to share images of his visit to a school in East Jerusalem. Sinn Fein MLA Declan Kearney branded the trip as an “Israeli state-sponsored propaganda stunt” and an “obscene act which caused deep offence”, while pointing out it has been roundly condemned by teachers’ unions, students and “all right-thinking people across these islands”.
November 11, 2025 at 8:33 AM
hleehurley.com
Knuckledusters, but pink - feminism far-right style
Belfast Telegraph front page today - main headline - Far-right group hands pink knuckledusters out to crowd at protest Far-right group hands pink knuckledusters out to crowd at protest Woman arrested at ‘all-female’ anti-immigration demonstration in Belfast Belfast Telegraph11 Nov 2025ALLISON MORRIS Pink knuckledusters were handed out by an all-female far-right group to crowds gathered at an anti-immigration protest in Belfast over the weekend. The Pink Ladies Ulster Women First Northern Ireland (PLUWFNI) group is mimicking the Pink Ladies UK group, who are often seen at protests outside hotels housing migrants in England, dressed in distinctive bright pink outfits. Around 80 people took part in their protest outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday. One woman was later arrested. Women at the event were handed ‘goodie bags’ of items that included a pink knuckleduster in the shape of a cat. The PSNI said police were aware of these items and enquiries are ongoing. A spokesperson added that it is illegal to have a knuckleduster in a public place. An all-female far-right group founded in England has started a branch in Northern Ireland, handing out pink knuckledusters to crowds gathered at a protest over the weekend. The Pink Ladies Ulster Women First Northern Ireland (PLUWFNI) are mimicking the Pink Ladies UK group, who are often seen at protests outside hotels housing migrants in England, dressed in distinctive bright pink outfits. On Saturday afternoon, around 80 people held an anti-immigration protest outside Belfast City Hall organised by the group. Some of those in attendance let off pink smoke flares. Posters included ‘Ban all Illegals’ and ‘Ballymena says no illegal migrants’.
November 11, 2025 at 8:32 AM
hleehurley.com
Suzanne Moore, who would rather be locked up than pay her BBC licence fee because the BBC is too nice to trans people for her liking.
These trans lies are grotesque. I’d rather be locked up than pay the licence fee The Daily Telegraph6 Nov 2025By Suzanne Moore THE BBC is under fire for its coverage of a “doctored” Donald Trump speech and the tendency of BBC Arabic to minimise Israeli suffering. On contentious subjects such as slavery, colonialism and the Irish famine, eminent academics claim there has been a rewriting of history. Such accusations of a lack of balance (or indeed a complete absence of debate on disputed issues) come as little surprise to me. For I have long watched as the BBC deliberately attempts to “gaslight” its audience on the complex issue of transgender rights. Gaslighting means the creation of a false narrative, and the manipulation of someone else’s perception of reality. On trans issues, by misinforming viewers or ignoring stories that did not fit its pro-trans agenda, this is exactly what the BBC has done. The leaked memo speaks of “unintended editorial bias”, but this is a very neutral way of describing what has been going on. Activists within the corporation ran the LGBT desk, which is used by all of the BBC’S news programmes. This small group of people were committed to “a pro-trans agenda” and “keeping other perspectives off air”.
November 9, 2025 at 11:46 AM
hleehurley.com
The Sunday Telegraph featuring 'left-wing' Sonia Sodha.

Sodha currently writes for The Times, or was until the end of October.
Corporation captured by minority ideology, says Left-wing writer The Sunday Telegraph9 Nov 2025By Aaron Newbury Sonia Sodha said that the BBC ‘is not representing the views of the British public’ THE BBC has been “captured by a minority ideology” on gender that does not represent the views of the British public, a Left-wing writer has said. Sonia Sodha, who has written for The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, said The Telegraph’s recent revelations of apparent bias at the BBC were “pretty strong”, adding that recent reports were a concern “not just to people on the Right, like Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage”, but also the Left. On Friday, The Telegraph revealed the BBC’s “gender and identity correspondent” tried to stop coverage of a campaigning organisation that was trying to protect single-sex spaces for women. Ms Sodha, a former adviser to Ed Milliband, said she was a “constructive friend of the BBC”, but said she was con- cerned about the broadcaster’s behaviour, in particular that of its Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU). It emerged this week that the ECU upheld a number of complaints against presenter Martine Croxall after she refused to refer to pregnant women as “pregnant people” during a news broadcast, in which she also appeared to roll her eyes. It was reported on Friday that the BBC’s own staff were amongst those complaining against Croxall. Ms Sodha said: “So I am a friend of the BBC, I like to think of myself as a constructive friend. I am a believer in public service broadcasting. So it’s not just people on the Right like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage that are worried about this. I think if you look at an issue like sex and gender, I am a journalist who has written about it a lot from a Leftwing perspective. I do think that the accusations of bias are pretty strong.
November 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
hleehurley.com
You don't need evidence to accuse trans people of anything. Just make it up and the Times etc will print it for you
Trans employee denies staring at nurses’ breasts Sanchez Manning - Social Affairs Correspondent Rose Henderson said that her colleagues were accepting of her A transgender nurse at the centre of legal action over trans women using female changing rooms at a hospital has denied claims that she stared at her colleagues’ breasts. Rose Henderson, who was born male but identifies as female, also denied walking around in boxer shorts and repeatedly asking a female nurse if she was getting changed. Henderson instead claimed she only ever “sarcastically” asked a different female colleague if she was almost changed when she was in a hurry to leave work. The denials were made in evidence at an employment tribunal that is hearing a case brought by eight nurses against the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. They claim that the trust has put women at risk by allowing trans women — males who identify as women — to use staff female changing rooms. The nurses brought the case after Henderson was allowed to use the women’s changing facilities at Darlington Memorial Hospital. Henderson told the tribunal: “I am not the individual [the claimants] have painted me to be.” Henderson said she had been out as a trans women since she started working at the trust as a student in 2019 and for several years before.
November 9, 2025 at 11:34 AM
hleehurley.com
They love to claim they speak for everybody.
Martine Croxall’s eye-roll spoke for a nation Like the newsreader, the public is sick of the BBC’s deep-rooted, intractable bias over gender and the erasure of women Janice Turner @VICTORIAPECKHAM Janice Turner The BBC executive complaints unit was spot on. When the newsreader Martine Croxall had to utter the words “pregnant people”, her facial expression — as she added, for clarity, the word “women” — did convey “disgust, ridicule, contempt or exasperation”. Because whose face doesn’t when confronted with the idiotic, ideological terms that dog the NHS and erase women even from motherhood? But the unit’s judgment that Croxall’s face fell short of the BBC’s expectations of impartiality will provoke more than an eye-roll. A bleak laugh maybe, or a thumped table. Because, really, what was Martine’s fleeting annoyance compared with the BBC’s deeprooted, intractable bias? The day before face-gate, it was all there in a report by the BBC independent external adviser Michael Prescott, which he will present to the culture, media and sport select committee on Wednesday. Besides noting biased reporting on race, Trump and the Middle East, Prescott discusses at length his “stark” finding that BBC coverage on gender is captured internally by a pro-Stonewall clique that squashes dissenting views. It was not news to me. Back in 2019, when Theresa May’s government was holding a public consultation on amending the Gender Recognition Act to include self-ID, and feminists were trying to raise concerns about how this would affect women’s prisons, sports and safety, the BBC ignored stories or voices that did not endorse LGBT activist demands.
November 9, 2025 at 11:29 AM
hleehurley.com
The Mail aren't happy about about Maxine Croxall and the BBC today. Most important thing in the world.

The people criticising - Kemi Badenoch, NIgel Farage.

Mentioned/quoted - Martina Navratilova, JK Rowling, Fiona Mcanena (Sex Matters)
WHAT DOUBLE STANDARDS! BBC newsreader ‘broke rules’ by pulling a face because her script said ‘pregnant people’. But bosses don’t seem to care that Panorama doctored Trump speech Daily Mail7 Nov 2025By Grant Tucker Entertainment Editor
November 7, 2025 at 7:49 AM
hleehurley.com
Pizza arrived cold, deliveroo refunded me 20p and that's all they would do... Until challenged
Convi with deliveroo about a cold pizza where they tell me they won't be refunding any more than the 20p they already refunded Deliveroo saying they'd refund the price of the full order after being challenged
November 5, 2025 at 6:09 PM
hleehurley.com
"Blood spilled in Sudan can be seen from space. Nobody can feign ignorance about what’s going on" [Guardian US]
Blood spilled in Sudan can be seen from space. Nobody can feign ignorance about what’s going on The Guardian (USA)4 Nov 2025Nesrine Malik Vantor/AFP/Getty Images A satellite image released on 31 October shows smoke billowing from fires around El Fasher airport. Photograph: Satellite image ©2025 It unfolded in plain sight over 18 months. The city of El Fasher in the Darfur region of Sudan, besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fell to the militia group last week, and what has followed is a catastrophe. Mass killings are under way. There are reports that in one maternity hospital alone almost 500 people - patients and their families - were killed. The few that managed to escape tell of summary executions of civilians. The RSF has embarked on a killing spree of civilians so severe that images of blood saturating the ground have been picked up by satellite. The speed and intensity of the killings in the immediate aftermath of the fall of El Fasher has already been compared by war monitors to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide. This is the culmination of a campaign that had walled in the population of the city - hundreds of thousands of people - and reduced it to starvation. Those who attempted to flee risked death and rape, and those that remained were bombed and surviving on nothing more than animal feed.
November 4, 2025 at 9:54 AM
hleehurley.com
It's not fair to cis women if trans women compete in golf but it's fine if Trump's granddaughter gets a place
Is Trump’s granddaughter worthy of tour spot? Lowly ranked junior faces scrutiny when she competes with world’s best in Florida LPGA event. By Tom Kershaw Kai, who is outside the top 450 in the US junior rankings, uses a YouTube video to document her preparations for a Ryder Cup trip with her grandad. Next image › Given the scale of Donald Trump’s golfing empire, perhaps it was only a matter of time until one of his descendants attempted to join the professional ranks. It was announced this week that the president’s 18-year-old granddaughter, Kai Trump, will make her debut on the LPGA Tour after accepting a sponsor’s exemption to play in The Annika, a showpiece tournament in Florida with a total purse of £2.45 million. The teenager, who is set to enrol at Miami University on a golf scholarship later this year, is extremely unlikely to be in contention at The Pelican golf club considering she is outside the top 450 in the US junior rankings and finished last at the illustrious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley in March with a score of 52 over par.
November 3, 2025 at 11:05 AM
hleehurley.com
Claire Coutinho writing in the Times today that "Every day of delay over the guidance puts women at risk"
Every day of delay over the guidance puts women at risk Comment Claire Coutinho The jubilation outside the Supreme Court on April 16 was clear for all to see when For Women Scotland won its landmark case against the extreme gender ideology that had taken root within our institutions. The court ruled that sex in the Equality Act meant biological sex — and always had. For years, women were vilified, even hounded out of their jobs, for stating the obvious truth that biological sex was real. The ruling was supposed to end all of this. Ministers said the equalities watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, would produce guidance to help everyone understand and comply with the law. But its draft now sits gathering dust on Bridget Phillipson’s desk — and The Times has revealed that ministers appear to want a regulatory impact assessment before approving the guidance, which could delay publication for another year. That may sound reasonable. But the guidance adds no regulatory burden, nor changes the law. It simply helps organisations comply with the law. Strange, then, that when it came to real changes — from the winter fuel payment fiasco to the family farm tax — this government was happy to charge ahead with no such assessment. The guidance is clear: single-sex spaces must operate on the basis of biological sex. This is not just common sense, it’s the law. And every day the government refuses to do its job and approve the guidance is a day that those breaking that law can plead ignorance of it. Every day of delay puts the dignity, privacy and even safety of women at risk. Claire Coutinho is shadow minister for equalities
November 3, 2025 at 10:57 AM
hleehurley.com
Prince Andrew no longer being a Prince isn't the Daily Mail's main front page story today...
Daily Mail front page with 'BANISHED' at the top on a purple background while the main headline is "HUMILIATION FOR REEVES AS SHE CHANGES HER STORY"
October 31, 2025 at 8:35 AM