A man who became the recipient of the first successful face and hands transplant once spoke out about the horrific car crash, which resulted in him getting the procedure.

Joe DiMeo suffered life changing injuries six years ago in a car crash, which occurred after he fell asleep at the wheel of his car, while driving home after a night shift in July 2018.

His Dodge Challenger hit a curb, flipped over and burst into flames during the crash and the man suffered his injuries before people could get to him and rescue him from the burning car.

He was left with serious burns over much of his body, but in August 2020 he survived a face and double hand transplant after 23 hours of surgery in New York where he had been given a slim chance of survival.

Joe said he was ‘ready for the transplant when it was offered to me’ as he ‘didn’t want to live how I was living’.

Speaking about the car crash, Joe said: “My car veered off the side of the road, hit a curb, flipped a couple of times and then caught on fire.

“I had a mod that scraped the curb which created a spark and then the oil pan cracked in the impact and then they just created a flame.

“I was 80 percent burnt. They had to amputate my fingertips to the second knuckle and then they had to suture my eyelids because they were burned. It was like looking out of a chain link fence.”

He added that his recovery afterwards was ‘super difficult’ and for the first two weeks he couldn’t even move his fingers, instead hospital staff would have to move them for him to get the muscle memory working.

After the accident, he said he ‘lost a lot of fake friends’ but also learned who he could really count on, saying that ‘you realise who your real friends are and you appreciate them more’.

Joe and his fiancée Jessica first bonded over their love of dogs. (Instagram/joeroydimeo)

Joe knows that his donor was a 48-year-old stroke victim who had died two days before his surgery, and since then there have been some major milestones in his life.

He ended up being contacted over social media by a woman named Jessica Koby and they soon bonded over their love of dogs.

Things between the two of them appear to be going very well because they both recently posted news that they’d got engaged to one another, with Joe saying there were ‘big things going down on December 5th’, and Koby writing that ‘I guess I’m the right one Joe asked and I said yes’.

She also said she ‘can’t wait to get married’, so it seems like it’s exciting times ahead for Joe and Jessica

The father-of-three said he started to become more aware of his condition when the son of one of his best friends passed away.

In an interview with LADbible, Lee said: “I remember going to his son’s funeral and thinking life can end at any moment, and I’m not happy.

“My behaviour started becoming more and more erratic.

“Me and my wife got into a huge argument. I was blaming my six-month-old son for holding me back in life.

“I always think he has this core memory of his dad yelling at him when he was a baby.

“And she came home and heard me yelling and screaming at my son.

“And that’s when she first called me a narcissist.

“And she ended up leaving, and that’s why I ended up looking the word narcissist up.

“I was like, ‘Damn, that sounds exactly like what I’ve been doing for 20 plus years’.”

Meanwhile, Lee has explained what he thinks the ‘biggest danger’ about being in a relationship with someone like him is.

In an interview with 7NEWS Australia, Lee said: “So I feel like the biggest danger in a relationship with a narcissist is losing your own identity.

“I feel like that’s one of the biggest dangers of being in a relationship with a narcissist/toxic person, whoever, is losing who you are, trying to fix this person and trying to help this person be better.

Lee Hammock turned his life around after going into therapy (Lee Hammock)

“You know, no narcissistic person can be better without them, themselves, wanting to be better.

“Without them, themselves, wanting to put the work in themselves.

“A lot of people think that they can heal a narcissist or they can fix a narcissist, or they see they are broken, they feel like they are dealing with a broken person.

“So you give pieces of yourself, trying to fix this broken person. You cannot out love the trauma that makes somebody a narcissist, they have to work on themselves.

“I feel like the biggest dangers is loss of identity, loss of self and typically you get isolated, you lose a lot.”

Speaking more broadly about relationships, Lee also told us: “Narcissism has destroyed most of my relationships. Most of my relationships follow the cycle of narcissistic abuse, love bombing, devaluation, discard.

“All my relationships had fallen apart in the same exact way. I’ll be madly in love with somebody, and then one day I will wake up and I will view this person in a different light.”

Lee Hammock now runs YouTube channel Mental Healness, along with coaching sessions for narcissists and victims of narcisstic abuse. He is also working on his first book.

American actress Brooke Shields has opened up on her relationship with her mum after she let her star in intimate film scenes at just 11 years old.

Shields, now 59, became a household name in 1978 when she starred in Pretty Baby, where she controversially appeared in nude scenes on a number of occasions during filming.

Her character was a child prostitute in the historical drama, with Shields even made to kiss co-star Keith Carradine in the film, who was 27 years old at the time.

It was’t the only film that saw Shields appear in intimate scenes at a young age, with her starring in The Blue Lagoon at the age of 14.

Fast-forward to 2024, and Shields has spoken candidly about her experience as a child star made to do this role, and the impact it had on her in the decades since.

In recent documentary Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby, the mum-of-two said she can’t quite understand how her mother, actress Teri Shields, allowed her to do the scenes. You can see a trailer for the documentary below:

Shields recalled that her mother simply told her the scenes were ‘make-believe’, with her on set for every scene that was filmed.

The documentary showcases the reaction of Shields’ own daughters, Grier and Rowan, with Rowan labelling it ‘child pornography’ after hearing what she had to do.

The two also asked their mother if she would let them do the same.

Breaking down in tears, Shield simply replies ‘no’.

“I mean, I could say – ‘Oh, it was the time back then’ or ‘Oh, it was art’,” Shields said. “But I don’t know why she thought it was all right. I don’t know.”

In a 2023 interview on The Drew Barrymore Show, Shields opened up on her relationship with her mother despite letting her carry out these scenes at an age that modern society would deem to be far too young.

Brooke with mum Teri (Robert R McElroy/Getty Images)

Conducting the interview, Drew Barrymore asked Shields if Teri had ever dated any of her former partners, like her own mother had done.

Responding, Shields said: “No, because she was in love with me.

“I was her main focus. Both of us were cut off from our sexuality. I was going to stay a virgin. She was going to be just Terri, terrific and being there.”

Keith Carradine, the actor who kissed 11-year-old Shields in Pretty Baby, said there is ‘no way that film would be made today’.

“Nor should we,” he added.

Brooke has spent years reflecting on her childhood experiences (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Glamour)

“I was invited to participate by one of the world’s premiere filmmakers and it was made by a major film studio, and I trusted the people with whom I was working that it would be handled properly and delicately.

“And frankly, I was 27 years old at the time, and pretty naive in my own right. But we were working with extraordinary artists, and I did feel like care was being taken.”

Carradine, who has more recently starred in Dexter and The Big Bang Theory, said he ‘applauds Brooke’s exploration of her life and re-examining things from her childhood’.

You can stream Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby on Disney+ now.

Vinnie Jones is in a new relationship with his personal assistant five years after the death of his wife.

The British actor married his late wife, Tanya Terry, back in 1994 – having dated as teens and reuniting later on.

They were together for 27 years and married for 25, sharing one son together, Aaron, now aged 33.

Tanya passed away in 2019 aged 53 from cancer.

“At 8.46am local time in Los Angeles on Saturday July 6, Vinnie Jones’ wife, Tanya Jones, passed away after a long illness,” a spokesperson said at the time.

In a 2019 interview with the Mirror, Jones explained how both he and his wife were treated for melanoma, but while he was given the all-clear, Tanya was hit harder.

“She was the light of my life. I will never be with anyone else,” he said, adding: “How am I going to go on? One of the guys at golf said, ‘How are you doing?’ He said: ‘I lost my wife 14 years ago. Let me tell you, it don’t get no better’.

“People say, how did it last?

“And I say because it was real, true love. I think we found true love.”

Five years later, Jones has opened up about finding love again with his personal assistant Emma Ford while filming his TV show Vinnie Jones In The Country.

Discovery

The 59-year-old told The Mirror: “You know, after four months, four years, five years, 10 years, you just keep moving forwards, the grief is always going to be in there.

“It’s how other things can control it. It’s how much the flower can grow and bloom.

“I think, for me, grief was always black and grey, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be colours and happy memories.”

He described his new relationship as ‘fantastic’.

“Moving forwards, we meet other people that we are fond of and we fall in love with and vice versa,” the former professional footballer added.