this is bbc news, the headlines: the us vice president has warned americans to expect a coronavirus scenario comparable to italy. the warning comes as america now has 200,000 confirmed infections, and over 4,500 deaths. in new york alone, nearly 400 people died in the past 2a hours. britain has also recorded its worst one—day figure for coronavirus—related deaths: 563, a rise of nearly a third. the government is facing increasing pressure over its handling of the outbreak, amid criticism over shortages of protective equipment for frontline health workers and delays in ramping up testing. italy has extended its stringent lockdown measures, but families are now allowed to take their children for a walk. for the third day in a row, italy has registered a relatively

low figure of new coronavirus cases. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, with me in new york. my guess is the british press, activist and model jameela york. my guess is the british press, activist and modeljameela jamil, after breaking into the us in the critically acclaimed comedy series the good place, she has been getting attention for her criticisms of celebrities like the kardashian‘s for the promotion of diet product to millions of young women on social media. as her campaign to make us feel better about our bodies working?

jameela jamil, welcome to hardtalk. for having these light you were in your early 20s, you decided that you wa nted your early 20s, you decided that you wanted to go into music presenting and you get this big break, you become the solo female host of a very prestigious show on radio in the uk... how important is it for you to break barriers?” the uk... how important is it for you to break barriers? i think it is very important for me to break barriers. come from a particularly irate, you just don't see south asians and positions of privilege, especially not in mainstream media so especially not in mainstream media so it means a lot to me because i was very damaged, i would say, by not seeing anyone like me look up to i was not seeing anyone like me look up to iwasa not seeing anyone like me look up to i was a child. it made me develop a sort of self—hatred because i've felt like they had no were because they couldn't see worth and anyone else similar to me. everyone else was very eurocentric and

that hurt me, and now they want to make sure that there is at least one, and no way am really lucky where i have grown up way am really lucky where i have grown up in a time where there are five, there are five whole south asians in this industry who are working in hollywood at the moment. you say with great irony. yeah. you are the daughter of pakistani indian pa rents are the daughter of pakistani indian parents but brought up in the uk, how important is your ethnicity to you? does it inform everything you do? yeah, it's very important to me, but it wasn't for the longest time, thatis but it wasn't for the longest time, that is what saying. i shuddered so heavily because they thought it was embarrassing and bad. grew up in the 90s which was such a racist time in england and got called a paki every day of my life and beaten up... literally beaten up? yes, once with tennis rackets by a bunch of white children. i was terrorised for my ethnicity and it was the only south asian girl in my primary school and one of maybe four in my entire

secondary school and i went to a large secondary school, so it played a big part in my early years of my lack of identity and now as i have grown older and i am getting into my 30s, grown older and i am getting into my 305, i grown older and i am getting into my 30s, i have fallen in love with the culture again in love the food in the culture and the music and realise they have really missed out on not reconnecting with my culture. but for a child to be attacked by a group of white children, boys and girls presumably, with tennis rackets, how old were you? what happened? i was seven, i think i had a tooth knocked out and cuts and grazes, but are used to get physically abused quite often at school. 0ften physically abused quite often at school. often by girls, caucasian women. i have nothing against caucasian people, but they had a really rough time growing up and i think representation is a big part of that, because they think if you can't. ..

of that, because they think if you can't... media of that, because they think if you can't. .. media is of that, because they think if you can't... media is such an amazing way to familiarise people, the public, with different people and if you don't do that then they don't understand people and i think that sometimes the. i think children kind of felt afraid of me, they disrespected me and they felt afraid of me because i was different. but really i'm not different, i'd just have a different level of melanin. you have really had quite a difficult past medically, you were born with congenital hearing loss, and you have talked about how you really lacked in confidence when you we re really lacked in confidence when you were at school. what was behind that lack of confidence? you describe yourself as bookish and shy. multitude of things. the fact that i was bullied fed my social anxiety which it is cyclical. it is a catch—22 situation, the more socially anxious you become, the more people bully you and it gets worth. i have a syndrome

which is sort of an invisible disability, and thatis sort of an invisible disability, and that is something i have had my whole life. that affects my body and every single way and it means that i am incredibly accident—prone at times and a bleed for longer than normal people, i bruce easier, it affects all of my organs, i think it is part of what affects my hearing so is part of what affects my hearing so when you are racing trail that misses a lot of school and you lose touch with your peers, that is also difficult. just being deaf can create a literal feeling of a wall between you and other people and again this was the 90s so it was an a blest again this was the 90s so it was an ablest time, much more ablest and we are now, so ablest time, much more ablest and we are now, so there were ablest time, much more ablest and we are now, so there were many ablest time, much more ablest and we are now, so there were many factors that still my confidence from me. and then at the age of 17, fleeing a bumblebee, you were struck by a car. yeah, the bumblebee wasn't even chasing me, and they got afraid and i've run into a car and that car hit me into another car. nothing has ever been more my fault in the world

than me getting hit by that car so i couldn't walk for a year. still doesn't feel right, i'd still have to be very careful with myself, but it was a good lesson. it snapped me out of, i head been very anorexic up until then which was my way of controlling the world around me and it snapped me out of my anorexia and give mea it snapped me out of my anorexia and give me a new relationship with my body, once they had lost what is for me, i head lost its use, a suddenly started to realise everything that i head had before that was just hurting and punishing and throwing away over something as simple and ridiculous as vanity, so it knocked some sense into me. it put your life into perspective? yeah! i would do it all again. you were told that you would never walk again. yeah, it was a possibility. my syndrome means that your damage are much worse than other people's damage and i head

really badly hurt myself. family members had to help you go to the lou. yeah, a lot of people with my condition end up in a wheelchair very young anyway, though they have been very, very privileged to be able to beat the odds on that. you mentioned the fact that you suffer from anorexia nervosa between the ages of 11! and i7, from anorexia nervosa between the ages of 11! and 17, you say you never ate a meal. what lay behind that anorexia nervosa 7 ate a meal. what lay behind that anorexia nervosa? you talked about being brought up in the toxic 90s, do you think there is something about that decade that meant that you ended up with eating disorder? it was the error that you had grown adults using the term heroin chic like it was something luxurious to aspire to. when you had people actually dying

from famine in the real world , actually dying from famine in the real world, and people starving themselves until they could barely function it was thought of as glamorous and hyper normalised. you had very dangerous roads like nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. and you had big famous actresses giving weight—loss tips in every single interview. and so, you know, i was consuming all the diet products, consuming all the diet rhetoric, i was just marinated in toxicity, and i was just surrounded by bad role models and that's what's driven me to rewrite the narrative on that. do you think that it's better now than it was in the ‘90s? yes. 0ur society is, yeah. we've finally got some people who are breaking through. i mean, but we are still, you know, you hear the debate still bombarded with tall slim models. and i have to ask you, though, this, because you are tall and slim, you're about 5'10", so why did you become a model and even a fashion scout yourself? 0h... so i really wanted...

it's a paradox, isn't it? no, not... no, no, when i was 15, i became a model because i was a child and i didn't know that that was bad and i was deliberately trying to starve myself and thought that was cool. and then when i was 19, i came out of that with this new realisation that i had almost died of anorexia for this fashion industry that i aspired towards, so i wanted to change the narrative of the fashion industry and i knew that the only way to do that was from the inside. and so i became a scout in the hopes of actually being able to bring in plus—size girls, i used to bring in curvy girls all the time and then fight the lead agent about the fact that she shouldn't be told to lose weight, she's too young and also her body is amazing, and try and bring in curvy girls. i was way ahead of the game where i had no idea that if i'd just stuck with it longer, plus size was going to become a huge industry. but that was something i was campaigning for. everything i've always done had been with a trojan horse intention. that's why i'm in hollywood now. like, i'm here to get my work done when it comes to activism.

i should say in 2016 you had a yet another health problem when you had a breast cancer scare. yeah, but thank god that was just a scare. a benign lump, yeah. undeterred, you went off to the united states, didn't you, and you thought, "oh, i'll try and work in radio broadcasting there," you were asked to audition for a part as an actress, as an actor, and you had never acted before. you got the part in the good place, and here you are, acting very successfully in this very popular tv series. that was unexpected success. very much so. i mean the lump, i didn't come here in spite of the lump. i probably came here because of the lump, you know, i had a week to find out if the lump was cancerous and in that week i had a word with myself about everything that probably caused that lump. all the stresses in my life and also everything that i will do if this turns out not to be cancer, and the first thing on that list was move to california, because i've always wanted to know what that would be like. and so the lump was the fuel for me to go.

i was like, right, i don't have cancer, i'm very lucky, i'm off! and i came here, and my frst audition was with... i had two auditions. one was for a game show, like a magic show that was shooting in vegas replacing jonathan ross, and then the other one was the good place with mike schur. and acting was the one that i'd never done before and i have had a life lived in the deep end, and so i enjoy challenging myself and just seeing how wrong this can go. and the good place — you act the part of an asian woman and you're supposed to... you think you are in heaven, but you're all somewhere else and so on, and it's incredibly popular. but you've used the fact that you are here and that you've had these health issues and so on, to raise your voice as an advocate, which is why a lot of people have applauded your activism. but when it comes to talking about body image and so on, there was a stylist magazine in august this year where you were featured on the front page smashing a set of weighing scales. and frances ryan, a british author of a book about the demonisation of disabled people, wrote in the guardian, an online the british newspaper,

that — about the troubled optics of a slim woman smashing diet culture. and she says, you know, there's a catch—22 in fighting sexism that women must largely meet the norms, the convention of attractiveness before they are allowed to criticise the demand to be attractive. fair comment, isn't it? completely fair. i've literally been the victim of what she's talking about because i gained lots of weight when i firstjoined radio one back back at 26 years old. i was then nationally fat—shamed for about six months. so, i started campaigning very heavily against fat phobia in the united kingdom, i went and spoke at parliament about it, i released a plus—size clothing line. but my activism could only go so far. i was stopped and called bitter and jealous, essentially i was dismissed because i was a larger woman now, so, therefore, my opinion didn't

count as much because i was too lazy to do the work to be slim and that's why i was sounding off about it. and so now that the same woman is slim, everyone is listening to me as if i'm saying brand—new ideas that people haven't been saying for 30 years! and so, i feel everyone's frustration, there's no part of me that isn't denying that i have privilege, i've literally been the person ignored because i was marginalised. and then one of the criticisms of that magazine cover was that you were featured wearing a white one—piece suit and everybody was saying, "that's not available in plus sizes." yeah. i mean, you open yourself up to so much criticism, don't you? no, but that's fine! that was great! it was great that that happened because it exposed the fact that the reason i was wearing clothes that didn't go up to size 18 is that i was wearing the sponsors of the magazine. that's how magazines are funded, especially stylist, because it's free, you don't buy it. and so they rely on money from their advertisers, so stella mccartney, etc, all these different designers. these designers do not

cater to plus sizes. the problem is, is that the companies that do go up to plus sizes don't have the kind of money to be able to fund a magazine like stylist, they can't afford that level of advertising. if they were funding it, i would wear their clothes! alright. so once i explained that, i think it highlighted that the issue is it's industry—wide and i understand where i sometimes get made the scapegoat, i've put myself out there. but it doesn't make me angry, it's a really important conversation. you set up i weigh, last year, in 2018, to discuss all these kind of issues and act as a kind of platform for you and you criticised the kardashians, in particular khloe kardashian. i mean, first of all, you actually said they should not just be reduced to women with beautiful bodies or whatever, but you had this campaign to stop celebrities endorsing eating suppressa nts products. butjust explain to us why you had to fall into a kind of minor clash

with the kardashians over this? i just think we're living in this really bizarre time where now celebrities just have carte blanche to sell whatever they want, however they want to young impressionable people, there's no regulations, there are no legal implications to what they are doing, they're selling toxic products that often laxatives, not declaring that they are laxatives, not doing things what we do with cigarettes and all kinds of all other different things which is declaring the ingredients and declaring the side—effects. for some reason they are allowed to just post heavily photo—shopped picture and a lie and pretend they drink this shake or eat this lollipop or eat a magical weightloss banana or whatever it is they are selling and be able to get away with it. you used very extreme language, is that necessary? you said, for instance, of the kardashians, that "their pockets are lined with the blood and diarrhoea of teenage girls" — obviously referring to the fact that some of these products have a laxative effect — and kim kardashian's response was "you're going to have a backlash

for almost everything, so so long as you like it or believe in it or it is worth it financially, whatever your decision may be, as long as you are ok with it, that's alright." yeah, sell heroin to children, as long as you back it yourself — that's fine. i'm not saying that is what she sells, i'm just saying it's the same ethos... i'm sure the kardashians don't... i would not be here right now sitting opposite you or speaking at the un or any of these things if i hadn't made a big noise and sometimes you have to use shock culture it is particularly shocking when a woman and a woman of colour speaks out because we are the ones who are the most under pressure to be obedient and so i was genuinely angry. it wasn't just a shock tactic, i was furious and it poured out. i do not tend to have a filter because i think that is something that is only really reserved for women — white men don't seem to have to have a filter in our day and age, especially not the more successful ones — piers morgan, donald trump — they're mouthing off about whatever they want, saying the first thing that comes into their mind... the british broadcaster, piers morgan. yeah! i reserve that same right and so i say whatever i want

and i wanted to say something that would wake people up and make sure they knew it was ok for me to tell truth to power. and in fact, as a result of yourcampaign, it has been successful — instagram have introduced restrictions on the promotion of diet products so you must feel that's a feather in your cap. it wasn'tjust me. i think i had a significant impact on that change, but there were also, just to be clear — experts and charities involved. related to this body image work and activism that you are doing so that young girls and older women do not fall foul of these kinds of things, you have also talked about the sexualisation of women. for instance, you have said of beyonce that, "she has sexualised herself to sell her records and of doing everything other than having a live smear test on stage." right, but you are bringing up something i said like ten years ago that i've repeatedly apologised for and explained and it's my pinned

tweet... alright. 0k. but you have said similar things about the over—sexualisation of rihanna... same time. so you don't — you withdraw all of those comments? i have publicly withdrawn them maybe 100 times, i've done it in magazines, i've explained it, i was a rape victim, a multiple rape victim who did not know where to project my anger and so i used to take aim — i'm going tojust finish, sorry — i used to take aim at the wrong target which was women and the way that they sexualised themselves. i should have been taking aim at the patriarchy that forces us to do that in a way that — i am not saying it is never a woman's choice — i believe sometimes it is a woman's choice and that's great — but i think that i should have been taking aim at the system that sexualised me from the age of, you know, being a very young child. i have been sexualised for as long as i can remember by grown men. and so i was angry and i did not know who to direct that rage at. ifelt like women who sexualised themselves were the reason that

i was being sexualised by men. it was men who were the problem, those men, not the women. alright. so not about the criticisms that you've made of beyonce, but just looking at the framework in which one can cast this conversation, i mean, there is such a thing as sex positive feminism, as i'm sure you know, a movement that began in the 1980s, the belief that the freedom of sexual expression is an important part of women achieving equality, and beyonce is often seen as the epitome of this and she herself has said, "look, men are free and women are not. you can be a businesswoman, an artist, a mother and a feminist, whatever you want to be, and still be a sexual being, it is not mutually exclusive." i agree. no, you don't need to explain that to me now. eight years ago i could have done with this chat, but at this point, i fully understand. i really support sex workers, i support the sex industry, i support the sexualisation of women if it is in their power and with their prerogative. i have not said a word in eight years... so, sex positive feminism — a woman, if she wants

to use her sexuality and so on. yes, just don't sell laxatives to children. that's all i care about. just do not be a bad, dangerous — don't sell dangerous unregulated products to children and do not ever attribute your physique that is down to a personal chef, a personal trainer, a surgeon, heavy use of photoshop, which you never declare, and pretend that you look like that because of some dodgy powder over the internet. talking about a personal chef, khloe kardashian says she does not employ a personal chef, just putting that out there... she didn't say she has not had any surgery. but cosmetic surgery — is that not the right for women to choose, if she want... yes! i think i was clear in saying, don't pretend that if you have had surgery that you have not and you look this way because of a magical powder... it is freedom of choice. i demand transparency from celebrities. it is the very least we can do. we are role models and we owe it to young people who look up to us to be transparent

and to tell them the truth. if you want to have your whole face redone, if you want to look like a lion or a giraffe, do whatever you want, just make sure you declare it and you are honest about it because they need to know... but maybe some people want to keep quiet about it. no, no... so celebrities are different from ordinary women... yes... you are profiting off people idolising you. i'm not finished — sorry — you are profiting off people who are idolising you and who aspire to look like you, but this is not an even keel that we are operating on. you have all of this privilege, you have all of this money, there are many reasons that you look the way that you do and young people feel bad about themselves for not looking like you — i feel like you're just about to interrupt me. it is the time, it's the time. no, i understand. that is my main point with everything. we got that one. so, the fact that you are a role model for so many young women, was the reason why meghan duchess of sussex chose you as one of her 15 female icons on the front page of vogue, british vogue, which she guest—edited.

so you must have been quite surprised by that, and i read that you thought that it was a hoax. yeah, it was ridiculous. i did not pick up my phone to the first time. ididn't i didn't know who was calling me! and then you have gone on from that because you have described the sussexes as very kind, smart, funny people. and, of course, there has been some criticism in the press about meghan duchess of sussex. you said this if her in a tweet, in august — "dear england and english press, just say you hate her because she is black and the duke for marrying a black woman and be done with it." so, what evidence do you have that racism is informing the criticisms of the duchess? it is so insidious in england that you can't categorically prove it all of the time, as someone who grew up in insidiously racist england. you're not always lucky enough for someone just to call you a paki to yourface. it comes in discrimination and the fact that you can hold up identical things that white members of the royal family do — meghan markle, she does the

exact same thing as one of them — they get hailed for it and she gets torn apart for it with such vitriol and perhaps i am wrong — call me crazy — but the one brown member of the royal family seems to get an awful lot of stick. the one brown member of the royal family seems to get the most abuse by about a country mile. finally, jameela jamil, what next for you? well, i am launching my way into a full activism platform for young marginalised activists who do not have my privilege and my platform, and i'm finding a way to give them a voice and give them access to the people who can actually change the world. and bring to life their vision and so it is going to be content and it is going to be podcasts and books and just a safe space for young people on the internet. jameela jamil, thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. thank you.

no worries. hello. 0ur weather is about to do a 180—degree turn in the next few days. for the end of this week, it's going to feel chilly and there will be some frosty starts. come the weekend, it starts to warm up quite dramatically, but it will get quite windy on sunday as well. here's why — at the moment, we're on the tail end of one area of low pressure, moving into northerly or north—westerly winds for thursday or friday, and come the weekend, we switch to southerly or south—westerlies as low pressure squeezes in from the west. in the midst of all this, there's high pressure, which is essentially keeping things relatively calm and largely dry.

some weak weather fronts sliding down across the uk on thursday, but coming in behind this weak cold front, you guessed it, colder air. quite gusty winds across the board, but particularly for shetland — up to 70mph at times today. and the temperature profile behind me gives you some indicator ofjust how far south the colder air will have worked its way through thursday afternoon. through the remainder of thursday into friday, that cold air floods right the way across the uk. the isobars open up a little bit. lighter winds, especially across the northern half of the uk, will mean a frosty start to friday, particularly across scotland, but also for parts of northern england and northern ireland. but here's some good sunshine from the get—go. look out for some wintry showers, though, perhaps even down to lower levels at times — that's just how cold the air will be, could even get the odd thundery shower as well. to the south, a bit more cloud around. the biggest difference is the way things will feel — temperatures just 6 or 7 degrees

across northern scotland. there's that high still hanging around there. 0n we go into saturday. the clear skies friday night overnight into saturday could make for a chilly start in southern parts of the uk, but there should be some good sunshine on saturday and with the low starting to approach, albeit quite a way away towards the west, we flip that wind direction round to a southerly. relatively light on saturday, butjust starting to lift our temperatures back up into double figures across scotland. here's the really big change, though, as that low closes in for sunday. the isobars squeeze together, that wind is going to get pretty strong, butjust look how the mild air works its way all the way north across the uk. temperatures are set to leap widely in the mid—teens i think across scotland, and we could even see up to 20 degrees possibly in the south—east of england.

welcome to bbc news, i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: expect it to be like italy, the trump administration issues a stark warning about the spread of coronavirus. together, we have the power to save countless lives. we are attacking the virus at every front, with social distancing, economic support. here in the uk the daily death toll passes five hundred for the first time. italy extends its stringent lockdown measures, but families are now allowed to take their children for a walk. and the painter david hockney, in lockdown in france, shares with us some

of the drawings that have kept him busy. the us vice president has warned americans to expect a coronavirus scenario comparable to italy. there have now been more than 200,000 confirmed infections in the united states, and more than 11,500 deaths. in new york alone, nearly 400 people died in the past 2a hours. people in florida and texas are now being told to stay at home. all this after president trump warned of a rough few weeks ahead. 0ur north america editor jon sopel reports. at this time of year, central park in new york