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There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.383273
| null | 0.315853
| -0.169864
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| null | 0.537376
| 0.724224
|
1,201
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.109942
| null | 0.647003
| -0.155816
| 0.662335
| null | 0.868526
| 0.738272
|
1,202
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.167595
| null | -0.144951
| -0.282742
| 0.604682
| null | 0.076572
| 0.611346
|
1,203
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| 0.212189
| 0.269908
| 0.648577
| null | 0.984466
| 0.781284
| 0.8701
| null |
1,204
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.581298
| null | 0.225141
| -0.598049
| 0.190979
| null | 0.446664
| 0.296039
|
1,205
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| null | 0.468985
| 0.527887
| -0.443465
| null | 0.98036
| 0.74941
| 0.450623
|
1,206
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.696722
| null | 0.358546
| -0.503533
| 0.075555
| null | 0.580069
| 0.390556
|
1,207
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.619197
| -0.157164
| null | -0.149085
| 0.15308
| 0.354212
| null | 0.745003
|
1,208
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.625951
| -0.472054
| null | -0.501219
| 0.146326
| 0.039322
| null | 0.392869
|
1,209
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.219421
| 0.272955
| 0.305516
| null | 0.552856
| 0.784331
| 0.527039
| null |
1,210
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.438082
| 0.222869
| -0.192232
| null | 0.334195
| 0.734245
| 0.029291
| null |
1,211
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.124481
| 0.331029
| null | -0.576249
| 0.647797
| 0.842405
| null | 0.317839
|
1,212
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.520103
| null | -0.146934
| -0.590534
| 0.252174
| null | 0.07459
| 0.303554
|
1,213
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| null | -0.249252
| 0.130123
| -0.398445
| null | 0.262124
| 0.351647
| 0.495643
|
1,214
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.353589
| null | -0.196458
| -0.506181
| 0.418688
| null | 0.025066
| 0.387907
|
1,215
| 2,528
|
There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England (file image) A major immunisation programme aims to protect teenagers against a potentially lethal new strain of meningitis after a steep rise in cases. There were just 22 cases of meningitis W in 2009, but this shot up to 117 last year, according to Public Health England. This is a rise of 431 per cent. Some experts said the levels could even indicate a public health emergency. While the rise was initially seen in adults, it has now extended to all age groups and, for the first time in a decade, young children have died as a result of MenW. There has also been a rise in cases among students. It is proposed to immunise teenagers aged 14 to 18 in an attempt to halt the disease’s spread. Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the upsurge in cases was caused by a ‘highly aggressive strain of the bug’. He said: ‘We reviewed the outbreak in detail and concluded that this increase was likely to continue in future years unless action is taken. ‘We have therefore advised the Department of Health to implement a vaccination programme for teenagers as soon as possible which we believe will have a substantial impact on the disease and protect the public’s health.’ Campaigners said the Government’s delay in introducing a vaccine against meningitis B – the last major strain of the disease – may have hindered the fight. Statistics show one baby dies every month in Britain from meningitis B and charities claim dozens of lives have needlessly been lost to the disease because of procrastination by officials. Chris Head, of the Meningitis Research Foundation, said: ‘We applaud the quick action by the Government to protect 14 to 18-year-olds using the MenACWY vaccine. ‘However, it will take more than a year for this protection to filter through to toddlers and infants, and in the meantime under-fives will still be dying and disabled as a result of MenW.’
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 10.6
| 87.646188
| 395
| 66.076696
| 0.772277
| 0.511376
| 0.221523
| 0.894088
| 0.000068
| 0.566029
| -0.265798
| 0.172466
| null | -0.205779
| 0.506479
| 0.683841
| null | 0.68831
|
1,216
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.583486
| -0.210707
| -0.403147
| null | 0.050178
| 0.723526
| 0.596853
| null |
1,217
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| 0.274898
| -0.310463
| null | -0.673968
| 0.908562
| 0.623771
| null | 0.052413
|
1,218
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.520776
| -0.334721
| -0.592422
| null | 0.112888
| 0.599513
| 0.407578
| null |
1,219
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.266242
| -0.213781
| 0.116457
| null | 0.667992
| 0.786219
| 0.842838
|
1,220
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.158019
| -0.296633
| 0.194345
| null | 0.776214
| 0.703367
| 0.920726
|
1,221
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.437827
| -0.229278
| -0.627823
| null | 0.496407
| 0.770722
| 0.098558
|
1,222
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.216964
| -0.198169
| null | 0.239683
| 0.416699
| 0.736064
| null | 0.966064
|
1,223
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| 0.124955
| -0.575338
| -0.687832
| null | 0.758618
| 0.358896
| 0.312168
| null |
1,224
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.2227
| null | -0.625182
| -0.246498
| 0.410963
| null | 0.374818
| 0.479883
|
1,225
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.104108
| -0.245018
| 0.113969
| null | 0.830126
| 0.754982
| 0.84035
|
1,226
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.108446
| -0.316026
| 0.165509
| null | 0.825787
| 0.683974
| 0.891889
|
1,227
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| 0.322964
| null | -0.471151
| -0.639146
| 0.956628
| null | 0.528849
| 0.087235
|
1,228
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.496164
| null | -0.636762
| -0.55715
| 0.137499
| null | 0.363238
| 0.16923
|
1,229
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.373876
| -0.272991
| -0.536823
| null | 0.560358
| 0.727009
| 0.189558
|
1,230
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| 0.104355
| null | -0.364827
| 0.199056
| 0.738018
| null | 0.635173
| 0.925437
|
1,231
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.544868
| null | -0.442801
| -0.601973
| 0.088796
| null | 0.557199
| 0.124408
|
1,232
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.180626
| -0.46096
| -0.529243
| null | 0.453037
| 0.473274
| 0.470757
| null |
1,233
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.365393
| -0.335224
| null | -0.573417
| 0.268271
| 0.599009
| null | 0.152963
|
1,234
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.533728
| -0.683994
| -0.692545
| null | 0.099936
| 0.25024
| 0.307455
| null |
1,235
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.597592
| null | -0.176809
| -0.624141
| 0.036071
| null | 0.823191
| 0.10224
|
1,236
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.284622
| -0.122618
| null | -0.321156
| 0.349041
| 0.811616
| null | 0.405225
|
1,237
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.199973
| -0.491184
| 0.190187
| null | 0.73426
| 0.508816
| 0.916567
|
1,238
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.257285
| -0.383316
| -0.100175
| null | 0.376379
| 0.550918
| 0.899825
| null |
1,239
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.344247
| -0.693793
| -0.324296
| null | 0.289416
| 0.240441
| 0.675704
| null |
1,240
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.113021
| null | -0.182217
| -0.352775
| 0.520642
| null | 0.817783
| 0.373606
|
1,241
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.583377
| -0.414365
| -0.286454
| null | 0.050286
| 0.519869
| 0.713546
| null |
1,242
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.203154
| null | -0.523743
| -0.485439
| 0.43051
| null | 0.476257
| 0.240942
|
1,243
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| null | -0.603638
| -0.495589
| -0.449363
| null | 0.330596
| 0.504411
| 0.277017
|
1,244
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| -0.163957
| null | -0.202199
| -0.264933
| 0.469706
| null | 0.797801
| 0.461447
|
1,245
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
| 123.039453
| 1,997
| 61.255156
| 0.633663
| 0.934234
| 1
| 0.726381
| 0.000672
| 5.577955
| 0.102998
| -0.278144
| null | -0.336111
| 0.736661
| 0.65609
| null | 0.390269
|
1,246
| 689
|
Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
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Her boyfriend’s dreary taste in furnishings is said to be the spark that first set Chrissie Rucker off in pursuit of all things white. Faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery in his flat in Fulham, West London, she rushed to the shops to find replacements in more neutral tones, but struggled when it came to buying good quality bed linen in the purest of whites. She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that day in 1993 marked the moment Rucker began to dream of setting up a shop selling everything in white. Scroll down for video . Chrissie Rucker is the founder and director of The White Company and is pictured here with a selection of her products . More than two decades on, the 46-year-old founder of The White Company is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesswomen having transformed what began as a 12-page mail-order catalogue selling white towels and bed linen into a home furnishings and fashion empire. Her business sells everything from £20 scented candles to £200 cashmere jumpers, and while she has branched out to shades such as ‘biscuit marl’ and ‘cloud grey’, Rucker remains obsessed with all things pale. Her white revolution has seen sales soaring at her 53 High Street stores — even the Queen has sent out her ladies-in-waiting to buy bedspreads — and has spread across the Atlantic where she launched a U.S. website last year. Latest figures show that the mother-of-four’s company made pre-tax profits of £6.5 million last year — an increase of 38 per cent. Her position on the Sunday Times Rich list has climbed steeply from 427th to 326th. She and her husband’s combined wealth is estimated at £295 million. Aside from the money pouring into company coffers, Rucker owns three stunning properties, all decorated from roof to floor in her trademark sweeping white interiors. There’s a £12.5 million 17th-century manor house in Buckinghamshire, set in 51 acres of parkland, a £4 million townhouse in London’s fashionable Holland Park and what is widely regarded to be the finest property in the Swiss Alps, Haus Alpina, a luxury chalet with full-time staff which Rucker rents out for a staggering £26,000 a week. Chrissie, pictured at her Buckinghamshire home, realised she had found a gap in the market when she was looking to decorate her future husband's house all in white . Even at Rucker’s main residence, the country mansion, the only flashes of colour you’ll see are the bright pony rosettes awarded to her horse-mad daughters. All in all, it’s a rather surprising state of affairs for a woman who disappointed her parents by leaving school at 16 with six O-levels and signing up at the Lucie Clayton finishing school which promised to prepare girls for marriage, society and ‘the season’. However, it was not long before Rucker decided she wanted to do something more interesting with her life than flutter her eyelashes at eligible young bachelors on the London social circuit. Indeed, the statuesque blonde’s path to fortune is rather more colourful than her dazzling white shops might suggest. Belinda Christian Rucker, as she was named by her parents, was born in 1968 into an illustrious military family — her maternal grandfather, Sir Harold Pyman, was Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Europe and a recipient of the Knight Grand Cross and Distinguished Service Order. The daughter of commodity broker, Patrick Rucker, Chrissie, as she was known, grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School in Kent. Her parents divorced, and aged seven, she and her younger sister, Jo, went with their mother Rosemary, a horse breeder, to live with their new step-father, estate agent Jeremy Calcutt. Those days, she recalled, were happy but chaotic. ‘My mother was really only interested in her horses,’ she said, ‘so the stables were immaculate, the house a tip.’ Chrissie's husband, Nick Wheeler (pictured), set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University . It was all a far cry from the vision Rucker would later create of domestic interiors as a haven of white and light. Her early ambitions lay in fashion. While at Lucy Clayton she studied dressmaking and design. But as a teenager in London in the late Eighties, Rucker seemed intent on immersing herself in a ‘Sloane Ranger’ lifestyle. In 1987, she was a debutante at the Savoy hotel’s Berkeley Ball, where she and fellow socialite and fashion journalist Plum Sykes were among a select bunch of girls chosen by judges including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and fashion designer Jean Muir to appear in the Berkeley Dress Show. Even at Chrissie and Nick's home in Buckinghamshire (pictured) you will see only flashes of colour, mainly in the bright pony rosettes awarded to their horse-mad daughters . Wedding dress designer Anneliese Sharpe, who was also on the judging panel, recalls that even among the ‘incredibly beautiful, leggy’ girls who paraded in front of her, desperate to be picked, 18-year-old Rucker stood out. Cannily, she used her introduction to Sharpe to ask for work experience. ‘Chrissie used to come every day,’ says Sharp. ‘She was completely different from the other debutantes. She was incredibly hard-working with no airs and graces.’ However, Rucker decided that life as a designer was not what she wanted after all. She began work at Conde Nast, the owner of several glossy magazines including Vogue and Tatler, first as a receptionist, then as a fashion assistant. She enrolled on a journalism course, later describing it as a ‘complete waste of time’, and flitted from there to Clarins, where she worked as a PR girl. She was poached from there by Harper & Queen’s health and beauty editor Tina Gaudoin in 1991. Gaudoin recalls: ‘She was so efficient and impressive, I said: “Are you interested in coming to work for me?” She dropped off her CV at 5am. I was so struck by her ability to be focused and unflappable that I hired her as my assistant. She has a great humility about her, which I find extraordinary, bearing in mind she is so successful.’ By the time she met her future husband, Rucker was still struggling to work out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. But although she fell in love with Old Etonian Nick Wheeler, she did not feel the same way about his taste in interiors. Chrissie (pictured) used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994 . According to Rucker herself: ‘I thought; “This is my chance. I’ll show him what excellent wife material I am.” So I went shopping and kitted it out — I bought white bed linen, white towels, white china, white napkins and white bathrobes. But I just found it impossible to buy plain white sheets on the High Street. ‘The only place you could get them was in department stores and shopping there was a horrible experience. All the salesgirls would look at you snootily, as if to say: “You can’t afford this.”’ While Rucker believed she had spotted a hole in the market, her husband-to-be was perfectly placed to advise her when it came to launching her own business. Chrissie (pictured) grew up in Kent and attended £5,275-a-term Combe Bank School before going on to the Lucie Clayton finishing school . Wheeler had set up his shirt company, Charles Tyrwhitt, in 1986 while a geography student at Bristol University. ‘I don’t think I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Nick,’ Rucker later claimed. ‘He guided me through the process, helped me write my first business plan.’ She began by calling up London department stores, pretending to be a journalist writing articles on homeware while ascertaining that up to 50 per cent of their sales involved white linen. She also quizzed PRs, manufacturers and friends. Chrissie (left) was inspired to start The White Company in 1993 after being faced with the fusty brown and burgundy upholstery of her future husband, Nick's (right) flat in Fulham, West London . ‘My mission was to bridge the gap between first-class designer quality and what was affordable without the big designer margins,’ she has said. Rucker used a £6,000 legacy from her grandmother to launch The White Company in March 1994. Wheeler gave her £5,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake, and she also received a £50-a-week enterprise grant. She produced her first mail-order catalogue, a 12-page leaflet, on a computer in Wheeler’s attic, delivering her first orders in her sister Jo’s Mini Metro. The company was an instant hit, turning over £258,000 in its first year, but Rucker remained committed to hard graft, working 16-hour days, right up until the birth of her first child. Chrissie is pictured here at home with her children; Ella, Tom, Bea and India, when they were younger . Since then, The White Company has gone from strength to strength. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry, attracting mirth among some palace officials because of the black outfit that she wore to receive the honour at Windsor Castle. She and her husband — together with their four children aged from ten to 18 — now reap the rewards of their entrepreneurial spirt. They almost split up when he failed to propose during a romantic holiday in Thailand the year Rucker launched her business. Upon returning to the UK, a feisty Rucker gave him his marching orders, storming into his office and returning his £5,000 investment in cash. In 2010, Rucker was made an MBE for services to the retail industry (pictured) attracting mirth among some palace officials thanks to her all black outfit . A shell-shocked Wheeler left the money on the roof of his sports car and drove off without it. When the couple did finally marry in 1995, Rucker gave him back one per cent of the company as a wedding gift. As a 99 per cent stake-holder, however, it is Rucker who remains at the head of a retail empire which has revolutionised tastes in home furnishings, a woman who continues to live and breathe the colour that made her a multi-millionaire. ‘For me, white is timeless and always very relevant,’ she insists. ‘Wherever you live, whatever your style, white works.’ Additional reporting: Simon Trump .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9.2
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| 1
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1,248
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
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Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 91.321538
| 1,857
| 59.73902
| 0.613861
| 0.555287
| 1
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 1
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1,251
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
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1,253
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 1,857
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 59.73902
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|
1,258
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
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| 0.613861
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| 1
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|
1,262
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 91.321538
| 1,857
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 1,857
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| 0.613861
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| 1
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1,268
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 1
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1,269
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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1,271
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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| 1,857
| 59.73902
| 0.613861
| 0.555287
| 1
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| 0.000485
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1,275
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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1,276
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|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
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(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 91.321538
| 1,857
| 59.73902
| 0.613861
| 0.555287
| 1
| 0.673645
| 0.000485
| 4.028343
| -0.403056
| null | -0.602334
| -0.282338
| 0.210806
| null | 0.397666
| 0.391307
|
1,279
| 2,863
|
(CNN)Marvin Gaye's children have penned an open letter in the hope of "set[ting] the record straight on a few misconceptions" in the media's coverage of their successful lawsuit against the writers of Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines." Nona Gaye, Frankie Gaye and Marvin Gaye III's joint letter mainly dives into the background and legacy of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," the 1977 single the court found to have been copied by Thicke and co-writer Pharrell Williams. Read more: Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly': A track-by-track guide . In the letter, the siblings imagine how their father would have handled the situation. "If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice," the siblings wrote. "But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights. He also gave credit where credit is due." Read more: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Fall Out Boy to induct Hall of Famers . Even though the outcome of the lawsuit favored the Gaye family, the children claim that all of this could have been avoided if Thicke and Williams had approached the family before releasing the single, especially since the similarities were deemed to be not coincidental. "Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage," the family stated. "This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen." Read more: Kelly Clarkson talks 'Since U Been Gone,' going country and upbeat new LP . Thicke and Pharrell Williams lost the copyright suit on March 10th. Following the court's decision, the lawyer representing Marvin Gaye's family has sought to halt all sales of "Blurred Lines." Since the proceedings, the family had noted some similarities between Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Williams' "Happy," though the family has confirmed in the open letter that they "have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning 'Happy.'" Read the full open letter from Marvin Gaye's children below: . An Open Letter from the Children of Marvin Gaye 3/18/15 . We want to extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude for the outpouring of love and support we have received from all of our father's fans and friends, as well as artists and industry folks who contacted us surrounding the recent events concerning his song, "Got to Give It Up." Your kindness and encouragement gave us incredible strength and perseverance. We are so incredibly grateful for your support as well as the hard work and dedication of our amazing legal team and experts. We thank you all. We especially want to thank our mom Jan for her belief in what we were doing all along, and for her never ending support. We will celebrate what would have been our dad's 76th birthday next month, and though we miss him every day -- just like the many thousands of well-wishers who have expressed their heartfelt goodwill - it is through his music that we find our compass and our paths moving forward. We are his children, but we too are his fans and we hold his music dear. It is in that spirit and on behalf of all those who Dad always considered an extended family, his fans, we take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few misconceptions echoing through some news and social media platforms about our intentions, our plans, and the so-called 'larger' ramifications of this case within the music industry. Originally released in 1977, "Got to Give It Up" became one of our dad's most cherished hits, still a favorite at backyard barbecues, weddings, parties, on the radio, or on your iPod. As Oprah said, it is one of her "favorite party songs of all time." The comments on social media, emails and calls we received after the verdict affirmed for us that the song continues to touch in even deeper ways, becoming part of the soundtrack to so many lives. "Got to Give It Up" is also recognized by Billboard Magazine as the fourth biggest single of the 30 charting hits our dad created during his extraordinary career. It has been nearly 38 years since its initial release: tastes change, trends evolve, but we should all be able to agree that it's a testament to the enduring power of "Got to Give It Up" that we have arrived at this juncture with Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, at all. The fact that they have openly acknowledged their respect and admiration for the song is public knowledge, and further proof of its resonance with an entirely new generation of music fans. However, most songwriting begins with an organic approach; a songwriter brings his or her influences to the table and then works creatively from a blank slate in the crafting of their song to ensure originality and the integrity of their creation. If Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams had tried to create a new song and coincidentally infused "Got to Give It Up" into their work, instead of deliberately undertaking to "write a song with the same groove," we would probably be having a different conversation. Like most artists, they could have licensed and secured the song for appropriate usage; a simple procedure usually arranged in advance of the song's release. This did not happen. We would have welcomed a conversation with them before the release of their work. This also did not happen. Instead of licensing our father's song and giving him the appropriate songwriter credit, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released "Blurred Lines" and then filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against us, forcing us into court. They sought to quickly affirm that their song was "starkly different," than "Got to Give It Up." The Judge denied their motion for Summary Judgement, and a jury was charged with determining the "extrinsic and intrinsic similarities" of the songs. The jury has spoken. We wanted to also make clear that the jury was not permitted to listen to the actual sound recording of "Got to Give It Up." Our dad's powerful vocal performance of his own song along with unique background sounds were eliminated from the trial, and the copyright infringement was based entirely on the similarity of the basic musical compositions, not on "style," or "feel," or "era," or "genre." His song is so iconic that its basic composition stood strong. We feel this further amplifies the soundness of the verdict. Like all music fans, we have an added appreciation for songs that touch us in mysterious ways. Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams certainly have a right to be inspired by "Got to Give It Up" but as the jury ruled, they did not have the right to use it without permission as a blueprint for a track they were constructing. Great artists like our dad intentionally build their music to last, but we as the caretakers of such treasures, have an obligation to be vigilant about preserving the integrity of the music so that future generations understand its origins and feel its effect as the artist intended, and to assure that it retains its value. We feel as many do that, our father, Marvin Gaye, is an artist for the ages. But whether we're talking about a work created 50 years ago or a work created 50 years from now -- protecting the legacy of original artistry is not a personal obligation, but a universal commitment in support of enduring creative achievement, encouraging future artists to also aim for new ground and their own legacies. That is what copyright laws help us do; they give people the incentive to write original songs and then help protect those songs. Our dad spent his life writing music- that is his legacy to us all- he wrote from his heart and was a brilliant songwriter, arranger, producer and one-of-a-kind vocalist. If he were alive today, we feel he would embrace the technology available to artists and the diverse music choices and spaces accessible to fans who can stream a song at a moment's notice. But we also know he would be vigilant about safeguarding the artist's rights; a sacred devotion to not only the artist, but key in encouraging and supporting innovation. He also gave credit where credit is due. Howard King, the attorney for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams stated after the verdict: "We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand. My clients know they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their heart and souls and no other source." We never for a minute suggested that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams' hearts weren't in it. But a jury of eight men and women have ruled that the source for "Blurred Lines" was the song "Got to Give It Up," a song our dad wrote from his heart, and delivered to the world with pure joy. With the digital age upon us, the threat of greater infringement looms for every artist. It is our wish that our dad's legacy, and all great music, past, present, and future, be enjoyed and protected, with the knowledge that adhering to copyright standards assures our musical treasures will always be valued. And finally, we want to put to rest any rumors that we are contemplating claims against Pharrell Williams for his song, "Happy." This is 100% false. We have absolutely no claim whatsoever concerning "Happy." Love and Respect, . Nona, Frankie, and Marvin III . Copyright © 2015 Rolling Stone.
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 91.321538
| 1,857
| 59.73902
| 0.613861
| 0.555287
| 1
| 0.673645
| 0.000485
| 4.028343
| 0.221213
| null | -0.635325
| -0.28358
| 0.835075
| null | 0.364675
| 0.390065
|
1,280
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| null | 0.382631
| 0.24195
| -0.132602
| null | 0.557733
| 0.49492
| 0.497532
|
1,281
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.36105
| -0.111029
| 0.2407
| null | 0.974911
| 0.064073
| 0.49367
| null |
1,282
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.152288
| null | -0.119963
| -0.401844
| 0.461574
| null | 0.133007
| 0.228289
|
1,283
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.350835
| 0.520496
| 0.445265
| null | 0.964696
| 0.695598
| 0.698235
| null |
1,284
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.5118
| null | 0.394921
| -0.36187
| 0.102061
| null | 0.647891
| 0.268263
|
1,285
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.238823
| 0.566711
| 0.583823
| null | 0.852684
| 0.741813
| 0.836793
| null |
1,286
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.361628
| 0.672744
| 0.216194
| null | 0.975489
| 0.847845
| 0.469164
| null |
1,287
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.480217
| 0.69516
| null | -0.344836
| 0.133645
| 0.870262
| null | 0.285297
|
1,288
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.383299
| 0.198394
| 0.447117
| null | 0.230562
| 0.373496
| 0.700087
| null |
1,289
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.358467
| 0.486562
| 0.543416
| null | 0.972329
| 0.661664
| 0.796386
| null |
1,290
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| null | 0.354228
| 0.183901
| -0.468467
| null | 0.52933
| 0.43687
| 0.161667
|
1,291
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.348252
| 0.324635
| -0.12142
| null | 0.962114
| 0.499737
| 0.13155
| null |
1,292
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.389294
| 0.699538
| null | -0.367092
| 0.224568
| 0.87464
| null | 0.263041
|
1,293
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.113601
| null | 0.109524
| -0.503223
| 0.727463
| null | 0.362494
| 0.12691
|
1,294
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.363715
| -0.103598
| null | 0.21358
| 0.250146
| 0.071504
| null | 0.843713
|
1,295
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| null | 0.548762
| 0.547556
| -0.199797
| null | 0.723863
| 0.800526
| 0.430336
|
1,296
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.366116
| 0.12281
| null | -0.149023
| 0.247746
| 0.297912
| null | 0.48111
|
1,297
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| null | -0.169249
| 0.645422
| -0.577101
| null | 0.005853
| 0.898392
| 0.053032
|
1,298
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| -0.320417
| null | -0.251949
| -0.232462
| 0.293445
| null | 0.001021
| 0.397671
|
1,299
| 187
|
Alberto Contador will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016, the multiple grand tour winner has announced. The Spanish rider has committed to the squad for his final season before retiring at the end of 2016. Contador wrote on Twitter: 'Hello all, happy to announce that in 2016 will continue being rider of @tinkoff-saxo'. Multiple Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador has announced he will end his career with Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 . The 32-year-old Spaniard is one of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours . Tinkoff-Saxo team boss Oleg Tinkov said on Twitter: 'Best stays with the best'. Contador is among the favourites for the 2015 Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Utrecht. The 32-year-old is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours - of France, Italy and Spain. In 2014 Contador crashed out of the Tour de France, but responded by winning the Vuelta a Espana. Contador won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France - he was stripped of the 2010 title for an anti-doping infringement - the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Contador lifts the Giro d'Italia trophy in 2011 while riding for the Saxo Bank team . Contador celebrates winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 - it was his third time winning it . Tinkov said in a media release: 'I'm very happy that Alberto will lead Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016 as well, because I truly believe he is the best cyclist in the world and I am convinced he will continue to be so for a few more years. 'Unfortunately, he decided he would retire at the end of next year which means he will race with my team for two full seasons. I would have, obviously, preferred him to stay longer but that was his personal decision. 'However, I am very proud that Alberto's impressive career will conclude in my team and I hope he takes the Tinkoff-Saxo colours to the top step of the Tour de France podium in 2015 and 2016.' Contador added: 'I am very happy to have closed the deal. It is already five years that I have been working with (team manager) Bjarne Riis and the possibility to continue for another year is satisfying.' Contador lifts the Tour de France trophy after winning the competition in 2009 ahead of Lance Armstrong .
|
Dataset: ccdv/cnn_dailymail/3.0.0/validation
| 9
| 59.5
| 440
| 58.488064
| 0.613861
| 0.175102
| 0.25297
| 0.630133
| 0.000062
| 0.512467
| 0.188386
| 0.580688
| 0.60919
| null | 0.802247
| 0.75579
| 0.86216
| null |
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