All posts tagged: Maya

Celebrity Traitors 2026 live: Richard E Grant and Maya Jama to make huge decision in tonight’s episode

Celebrity Traitors 2026 live: Richard E Grant and Maya Jama to make huge decision in tonight’s episode

Published by Daniella Wilson

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in (BBC) Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Finally, it’s that time of year again: the temperature is dropping, the nights are drawing in, and a group of celebrities are about to spend several weeks lying to one another in a Scottish castle. That’s right, Celebrity Traitors is back. The VIP version of the BBC hit show returned for its hugely anticipated second season on Thursday night (1 October), with the formidable and fringed Claudia Winkleman presiding over a new crop of 21 stars ready to backstab their way to victory, with tough guy Ross Kemp already letting his paranoia get the best of him. Richard E Grant, meanwhile, was overjoyed to find himself selected as a Traitor alongside Love Island’s Maya Jama. …

Maya Jama Opens Up About Celebrity Traitors Advantage Her Co-Stars Don't Even Know

Maya Jama Opens Up About Celebrity Traitors Advantage Her Co-Stars Don't Even Know

Published by Sam Flores

Maya Jama has claimed that she has an advantage going into The Celebrity Traitors that her fellow contestants won’t even be aware of. The Love Island host was one of 21 celebrities who took part in the second season of the Bafta-winning reality show over the summer, the first episode of which is finally due to air on Thursday night. Speaking ahead of episode one airing, the presenter claimed that her on-screen persona on shows like Love Island doesn’t necessarily reflect who she is in real life – which could work in her favour in the castle. “I’ve thought about this a lot,” she claimed, admitting that “I honestly don’t know what people’s perception of me is”. Maya Jama is one of 21 contestants on the new season of The Celebrity Traitors Maya continued: “If you’ve only watched me on Love Island, you probably just see me walking in, having a chat and sending people home. “I can be warm, but can also be quite direct when I need to be, so maybe people won’t …

Maya Jama Sets The Record Straight On Stormzy Reunion Rumours

Maya Jama Sets The Record Straight On Stormzy Reunion Rumours

Published by Sam Flores

Maya Jama is pouring water on the speculation that she and her famous ex, Stormzy, are back together. The Love Island host found herself at the centre of rumours earlier this week, when fans spotted that she and the Vossi Bop rapper were once again following each other on Instagram. Fuelling the rumours even further was a clip that Maya posted of herself on social media lip syncing to Stormzy’s song One Second. However, the TV personality is adamant that people have got the wrong end of the stick if they think this means she and the Brit Award winner have reunited. Maya Jama and Stormzy in 2017 “I like the song,” she continued, pointing out that she and the grime star “have always been friends”. “No one is back together, rest with the theories,” she then urged her fans. 🤣🤣 I like the song. We have always been friends. No one is back together, rest with the theories ❤️🙏🏽 https://t.co/FjjzzUOocq — Maya Jama (@MayaJama) September 24, 2026 Maya and Stormzy first began dating in …

Maya Jama tipped to be in line to replace Emma Willis on The Voice UK

Maya Jama tipped to be in line to replace Emma Willis on The Voice UK

Published by Daniella Wilson

Love Island presenter Maya Jama is reportedly in talks with ITV over a key primetime presenting role. According to The Sun, the 31-year-old is said to have held multiple meetings with the channel’s producers about replacing Emma Willis as the new host of The Voice UK. Willis has seemingly left the reality singing series after 12 years to join Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe as part of the BBC’s new presenting team for Strictly Come Dancing. The paper claims that Jama has impressed ITV bosses and has reportedly been offered the job of fronting The Voice UK, but has yet to accept it due to other potential opportunities in the UK and in the US. Johannes Radebe, Emma Willis and Josh Widdicombe. BBC/Ray Burmiston A source told The Sun: “There have been a lot of approaches to Maya from various networks, including ITV, and shows in the UK and Stateside. “The Voice producers and her did have meetings but because of her other commitments, the conversation didn’t progress. “Right now, she and her management are evaluating …

Calakmul Mural Identified as Early Depiction of Maya Hero Juun Ajaw

Calakmul Mural Identified as Early Depiction of Maya Hero Juun Ajaw

Published by Jenni Sidey

Researchers have identified what they believe is one of the oldest known representations of the mythical Maya hero Juun Ajaw at the ancient city of Calakmul in Mexico. Their findings, which were based on three years of research and analysis, were published in IdeAs, the online journal of the Institute of the Americas. The authors of the paper, archeologists Daniel Salazar Lama, Ana García Barrios, and Benjamin Esqueda Lazo De La Vega, focused on what is considered the earliest mural painting found at Calakmul, a massive Maya city whose ruins, deep in the Yucatan jungle, were discovered in 1931. Though the mural, which depicts a man in a headdress holding a spear, had been removed for conservation in 2004, the team relied on advanced imaging techniques to reconstruct both the work and its surrounding architecture. Related Articles In their report, the authors posit that the image, which until now had been thought to represent a warrior with a spear, is in fact a painting of Juun Ajaw, a central figure in Maya mythology best known …

Hieroglyphs Reveal Name of Ancient Mayan Astronomer for the First Time

Hieroglyphs Reveal Name of Ancient Mayan Astronomer for the First Time

Published by Jenni Sidey

Archaeologists excavating Xultun, a large Mayan site in northeast Guatemala, have identified the name of an 8th-century Mayan astronomer-mathematician who wrote a calendrical formula on an interior wall of a small masonry building. The individual’s name, Sak Tahn Waax, translates to “White-chested Fox,” and the formula (either written by him, or by someone else and attributed to him) calculates the orbital cycles of Mars and Venus. According to a paper published by Antiquity, this is the first and only known example of a Maya mathematician being directly credited for his or her intellectual work. Related Articles The structure where the formula and signature were found was first excavated in 2010. In addition to hieroglyph texts, the interior walls feature murals depicting portraits of seated and kneeling figures, and archaeological evidence of papermaking tools. Researchers believe that the chamber was used for mentorship and training, and to teach calendrical calculations during the 8th century CE, before being filled in around the end of the century, eventually becoming the foundation for a new building. In order to …

Jenni Fagan: ‘Maya Angelou taught me that I owed myself hope’ | Books

Jenni Fagan: ‘Maya Angelou taught me that I owed myself hope’ | Books

Published by Sam Flores

My earliest reading memoryFairytales. I was obsessed. I took fairytales very seriously as moral lessons. I soon knew that I’d always help any old lady cross the road, it really is always best to do so. My favourite book growing upThe Hobbit was my favourite book while growing up. It expanded my understanding of what could be achieved in fiction. I found JRR Tolkien’s world transformative. I felt as if I knew the hobbits, and I so wanted to see the elves. I could hear the crack of fireworks as they turned into dragons that flew overhead. The writer who changed my mindMaya Angelou taught me that I owed myself hope. No matter how painful or difficult it was. Her work has such dignity and light. I read all of her work for years and took as many lessons from it as I could. It made me want to step up and continue to try to find a way to create a life that mattered to me. The book that made me want to be a writerI was reading the dictionary when I was really …

Maya Hawke reveals next steps in marriage to musician husband as she puts ‘some roots down’

Maya Hawke reveals next steps in marriage to musician husband as she puts ‘some roots down’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Maya Hawke is enjoying all the next steps that come with married life. The Stranger Things actress tied the knot on Valentine’s Day 2026 in New York City, marrying musician Christian Lee Hutson. The couple are now putting down roots, and have settled down not far from none other than Maya’s mom Uma Thurman. © Getty ImagesMaya and Christian married on Valentine’s Day 2026 Speaking with People, Maya, 27, revealed that she and Christian, 35, purchased a home in upstate New York, where Uma also owns a home, reportedly in the Woodstock area of the Catskills. “I just got myself a home a couple of blocks away from my mom,” she shared, gushing: “I’m so excited to finally be able to put some roots down.” It’s a timely purchase in more ways than one, as Maya is currently filming God of the Woods, a television adaptation of the bestselling Liz Moore novel, right in the town she grew up in, in the Hudson River Valley, not far from where she has now purchased a new home. …

Maya City, Hidden for More Than 1000 Years, Discovered Intact in Mexico

Maya City, Hidden for More Than 1000 Years, Discovered Intact in Mexico

Published by Jenni Sidey

A joint Slovenian-Mexican archeological team has discovered an undisturbed Mayan city in a remote area of Campeche, Mexico. Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city—which the researchers have named “Minanbé,” a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning “there is no road”—had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand years. The site features a 43-foot-high pyramid temple (about the height of a four-story apartment building), and 14 carved altars and stelae, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which authorized the expedition. The discovery is the culmination of lead archaeologist Ivan Šprajc’s three-decade-long exploration of the Central Maya Lowlands, home to between 9 and 11 million people during the Maya civilization’s Late Classic period (600–900 CE). Related Articles This year’s expedition followed on the team’s discovery, in 2013, of the Mayan city of Chactún. Airborne LiDAR mapping of the area had shown a 37-acre urban center under the forest canopy just east of Chactún, with squares surrounded by palaces and temples, terraces, and hydraulic channels. To conduct a surface …

Elite Maya people had teeth placed in a cave far from their tombs

Elite Maya people had teeth placed in a cave far from their tombs

Published by skeptic

The Mayan site of Xunantunich in Belize Michael Robinson/Getty Images The teeth of some important members of the Maya civilisation were removed and kept in a cave far from their tombs. It may have been done to venerate ancestors or ensure they made it to the underworld. During the Classic period (AD 250-900), Maya communities lived in cities spread across what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and northern Honduras. They spoke many languages, but were unified by a political and religious system in which lineage and rituals legitimised power. As such, the dead were important, and the living often kept the remains of many deceased relatives nearby, under the floors of the house or within the walls. Esther Brielle at Harvard University and her colleagues studied remains at numerous burial sites in Belize from the Classic period to investigate how some of the buried people related to each other. They generated genomic data from hundreds of samples and used radiocarbon dating to work out when each person lived. They found that 341 samples relate …