Names and faces
■ Years after revealing his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, Neil Diamond is opening up about life with the degenerative brain disorder.
In a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview that aired today, the 82-yearold “Sweet Caroline” crooner reveals that he wasn’t ready to accept his diagnosis for at least a year or two. “I’m still doing it and I don’t like it,” Diamond told correspondent Anthony Mason. “But … this is me. … This is the hand that God’s given me.” He announced in 2018 that he had Parkinson’s, which can cause tremors, slow movement, stiffness and loss of balance, among other issues. Diamond said he’s only come to accept his diagnosis “in the last few weeks.” “But somehow, a calm has moved [into] the hurricane of my life, and things have gotten very quiet,” he added. “And I like it. I find that I like myself better.” Diamond is seeing his life play out onstage in the Broadway musical “A Beautiful Noise.” “I was flattered and I was scared,” the showman said of the musical. Last week, producers announced that “A Beautiful Noise” will embark on a multiyear North American tour launching next fall.
■ Andrew Tate, the internet personality who has spent months in a Romanian jail on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, has won an appeal to replace his detention with house arrest, an official said Friday. The Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Tate’s appeal, which challenged a judge’s decision last week to extend his arrest a fourth time for 30 days, said Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT. Tate, 36, a kickboxer who has 5.5 million Twitter followers, was initially detained in late December in Bucharest, along with his brother, Tristan, and two Romanian women. All four won an appeal Friday and will remain under house arrest until April 29, Bolla said. None of the four has been formally indicted. Standing outside a home near the capital, Andrew Tate said he wanted to thank the judges “who heard us today, because they were very attentive and they listened to us, and they let us free.” “I have no resentment in my heart,” he said. “I truly believe that justice will be served in the end. There is zero percent chance of me being convicted.”