“So You Think You Can Dance” star Joshua Allen’s girlfriend is sharing her side of the fight that broke out at his funeral last weekend … telling TMZ she was invited by family before his aunt allegedly attacked her. We told you all about it –…
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The girlfriend of late Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland broke her silence after the NFL star’s sudden death.
“I’m grieving hard right now,” Catalina Mancera told the Daily Mail on Monday, November 10. “It will be a long time before I’ll feel ready to talk at any length.”
Mancera, 22, called the police the night before Kneeland’s death on the morning of Thursday, November 6. She expressed concern over Kneeland’s well-being, telling authorities her boyfriend had “a history of mental illness.”
After a brief police chase, Kneeland was found near his abandoned car on the Dallas Parkway, dead of an apparent suicide. He was 24 years old.
Cowboys’ Marshawn Kneeland Was Worried About Going to Prison Before Death
“We’re still in the early stages of everything,” Mancera added. “We are working on the funeral arrangements. I don’t know where it’s going to be yet.”
Kneeland was also survived by his father, Shawn, who is currently incarcerated in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and his three siblings: brothers, AJ and Shawn Jr., and sister, Yahmya.
The football star’s mother, Wendy, died in February 2024, just two months before he was selected in the second round by the Cowboys in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Mancera, a fashion designer, has been staying at the Plano, Texas, apartment where Kneeland lived prior to his death.
Nicole Kneeland-Woods, Marshawn’s cousin, told the Daily Mail that the NFL player started dating Mancera while he was a student-athlete at Western Michigan University.
“Marshawn shared a very special relationship with Catalina, whom he had been with since his sophomore year of college,” she said. “They supported each other through many stages of life. Catalina is an important part of our family and she’s hurting deeply too.”
Despite what 911 dispatchers allege Catalina told them, Nicole said, “There were no previous signs or indications that Marshawn was dealing with mental issues.”
“Marshawn was a strong, loving person who cared deeply about his family and everyone around him,” Nicole added.
In addition to the death of his mother, Marshawn also lost his grandfather in 2023, which Nicole said was “was incredibly hard for him.”
“But beyond that grief, Marshawn didn’t show signs of depression or mental health issues,” Nicole explained. “Our family is devastated and still trying to process something that feels unimaginable. We want people to remember Marshawn for his kindness, his sense of humor and his drive. He was loved deeply and that love will always be his legacy.”
Former Coach of Marshawn Kneeland Recalls Final Chat Days Before His Death
Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, broke his silence about Marshawn’s death on Tuesday, November 11.
“I think we all have unfettered feelings about the people we love, people we work with, and this is just a time when you acknowledge that there’s no answers,” Jones, 83, said on Dallas’ 105.3 The Fan. “It makes you want to live life to the fullest. It makes you want to look for the very best in what we have for each other. And in some way make sense out of these times in terms of what they can mean from helping those that are here on earth right now.”
Jones added, “All of those things are very natural, come to mind, but his death is such a national awareness thing that it takes on some of that light when we think about how we go forward.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
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Charles Spencer is sharing new details on how he crafted his sister Princess Diana’s eulogy at her funeral.
In an interview with Gyles Brandreth on the Friday, October 24, episode of the “Rosebud” podcast, the 9th Earl Spencer, 61, said that the eulogy he had originally planned for Diana’s memorial service in September 1997 was “very different” from what he eventually read.
He explained that he was “in bits” flying back to the U.K. from Cape Town, South Africa, when he started thinking about who could eulogize his sister.
“I had a big, thick address book, and I thought, ‘I want to find someone who’s going to make the speech for her.’ And I got to ‘Z’ and I hadn’t found anyone,” Spencer recalled of the “profoundly emotional moment.”
“[I] got off the plane in Heathrow [Airport], called my mother, I said, ‘I can’t think who’s going to give the eulogy. And I’ve got an awful feeling it’s going to have to be me,’” he continued. “And she said, ‘Well, it is going to be you. Your sisters and I have decided it.’”
Princess Diana’s Brother Charles Spencer Visits Her Grave Almost Daily
Spencer said that he initially decided to write a “very traditional eulogy” about their childhood and such, but then thought, “Well, this is ridiculous, that’s not who she was.”
He said he soon “realized” that the moment called for him not to speak about the late Princess of Wales but to “speak for her.”
“And I knew I’d been left at that stage — it had no legal standing — but I knew she’d left me as guardian of her sons,” Spencer added of his nephews Prince William and Prince Harry, who were 15 and 12 when their mother died at age 36 after a car crash in Paris in August 1997.
“Obviously, the other parent being alive, that meant nothing, but it meant something to me. That sort of duty, I think,” Spencer said, noting that the now King Charles III would obviously be caring for his sons. “And then I wrote [the eulogy] in an hour and a half and, yeah, that was it, really.”
He admitted that he took a “name-check” to Rupert Murdoch out, deeming it “rather unnecessary,” but kept the rest of what he had planned to say in his touching speech.
The eulogy is “one of the most unforgettable moments in recent British history,” according to “Rosebud,” and detailed her selflessness, strength, beauty and love of family. It also spoke to Diana’s mistreatment by the British media.
“She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate and I do this here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair,” Spencer said at the time.
“And beyond that,” he continued, “on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.”
Spencer has been a champion for both William, 43, and Harry, 41, over the years, notably supporting Harry in January after he settled his legal battle with The Sun. The News Group Newspaper, owned by Murdoch, 94, apologized to Harry “for the serious intrusion” of his private life, along with his late mother’s, for decades.
Princess Diana’s Brother Pays Tribute on 27th Anniversary of Her Death
Spencer praised Harry following the victory, writing in an Instagram post at the time, “It takes an enormous amount of guts to take on major media organizations like this, and incredible tenacity to win against them. It’s wonderful that Harry also secured an apology for his mother — she would be immensely touched by this, I’m sure, and also rightly proud. Well done indeed.”
Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from their royal duties in 2020 and have since been in disagreement with his father, William and his wife, Kate Middleton.
Harry and Meghan, 44, now live in California with their children, Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4.
“I enjoy living [in the U.S.] and bringing my kids up here,” the Duke of Sussex said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York City in December 2024. “It’s a part of my life that I never thought I was going to live and it feels as though it’s the life that my mom wanted for me.”
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