Londoner’s Diary: Cara Delevingne’s not fetishising… she’s a fangirl, says Banks

Musician Azealia Banks has defended Cara Delevingne after the model was criticised for “fetishising” black women last week. Videos showed Cara dancing around a seemingly uncomfortable Megan Thee Stallion at the US Billboard Music Awards.

“Cara Delevingne is literally the least racist white woman I know. She was clearly fangirling,” said Banks online, calling the furore a “totally weird smear campaign”.

Fans had been sharing videos of Cara licking Banks’ leg at a performance at Soho nightclub The Box, to show her history of similar behaviour. “All kinds of debauchery happens at The Box,” said Banks. “I was actually happy to see her and invited her on stage myself.”

Banks also hinted at feeling sorry for Cara, saying she is “sad and lonely” and traveled the world “completely alone for years”.

Exams a drama for Netflix star

Kit Connor is starring in this season’s hit Netflix drama Heartstopper, but his performances aren’t much appreciated back at his school. The actor, who is 18 and starts his A-level exams in English and History this week, has revealed that he’s not a star student in his drama course. “Ironically my worst one is drama. I got a D,” he confessed yesterday. “To be fair, I think I answered the wrong questions.” What do the examiners know?

Out of the frying pan?

Stephen Fry looked back on his career at a “Hall of Fame” Radio Times event at the BFI yesterday. He didn’t have the most auspicious start, with a spell in a young offenders’ prison for credit card fraud, where he was nicknamed “professor” and taught a fellow inmate the alphabet. But Fry didn’t find being locked up all that hard. “I was sent to boarding school when I was seven, it was a breeze,” he joked.

Ibiza to the Southbank

Londoner’s Diary 23 05 21

Actors Archie Madekwe, Florence Pugh and Will Poulter posed at the opening of a new Standard hotel in Ibiza this weekend. On London’s Southbank, thesps Omari Douglas, Ruth Wilson and Eleanor Tomlinson went to the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival. At a Q&A, Alison Oliver and Joe Alwyn, stars of new BBC Sally Rooney drama Conversations with Friends, told how an “enormous rat” plagued the filming of a key scene in their show. Alwyn opted not to answer questions about his famous partner Taylor Swift.

--

Residents near Hampstead Heath are celebrating after developers pulled out of a plan to build 850 new homes in the area. Earlier this year, locals including Michael Palin and Melvyn Bragg lodged complaints against the proposed development in Murphy’s Yard near Kentish Town. Lord Bragg said the 19-storey building “would be absolutely out of character with the surrounding area”.