title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: After the divorce, the British tabloids continued to cover Sarah's lifestyle. In 1995, a baggage handler at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City pleaded guilty to stealing her $382,000 diamond necklace and bracelet. Sarah's commercial interests have included an eleven-year endorsement with Weight Watchers and product development and promotion with Wedgwood and Avon.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: Until 2004, the Duke of York and his former wife shared the family's home, Sunninghill Park in Berkshire. That year, the Duke moved to the refurbished Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, previously the home of his grandmother, who resided there until her death in 2002. In 2007, Sarah rented Dolphin House in Englefield Green, less than a mile from Royal Lodge; a fire at Dolphin House in 2008 caused her to vacate the premises and move into Royal Lodge with her former husband.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2009, Sarah participated in a much-criticised ITV "experiment" in which she joined families in a council estate to advise them on proper living. She stayed for ten days in Northern Moor, a suburb area in Wythenshawe, Manchester, England, and the result was "The Duchess on the Estate", transmitted on ITV1 on 18 August 2009. A previous, similar television venture, "The Duchess in Hull", in which Sarah advised lower-income families on diet and behaviour, received similar criticism.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2015, Sarah was reported to have moved out of Royal Lodge and assumed residence in Verbier, Switzerland, where she and the Duke of York owned a £13 million chalet. She applied for Swiss residency in 2016. Sarah also maintains a rented apartment in Eaton Square in London and a room at Royal Lodge.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In the mid-1990s, Sarah reportedly had a £4.2 million deficit in her bank account which she paid off by going on "a four-year earning spree" in the United States.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2006, Sarah used the money she had earned from her career as a film producer and writer to found Hartmoor LLC in the US. A lifestyle company, it was set to help with her "career in publishing, media and public speaking". The company collapsed in 2009, leaving Sarah with a debt of £630,000. Later in the same year, it was revealed that she was in a financial dispute with three firms and in September she was summoned "to court in the UK for unpaid bills". It was reported in August 2010 that Sarah might declare voluntary bankruptcy with debts of £5 million, though other sources had suggested she owed about £2 million.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In March 2011, it was reported that Jeffrey Epstein had helped Sarah avoid bankruptcy by paying off some of her debts. The payments were reportedly made after intervention from the Duke of York. She later admitted getting money from Epstein and called it a "gigantic error". In the summer of 2011, "Finding Sarah" aired on the OWN network. One episode of the U.S.-filmed reality series depicted Sarah meeting with Suze Orman, the internationally known financial advisor, receiving from Orman a strict lecture and practical advice on how to resolve her financial issues.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In May 2020, it was reported that Andrew and Sarah were in a legal dispute over a debt from the 2014 purchase of their Swiss chalet. They had taken out a mortgage of £13.25 million and were expected to pay the remaining £5 million of the purchase price in cash instalments by the end of 2019; interest had increased this to £6.8 million. Despite reports that the Queen would assist them, a spokesperson for the Duke of York confirmed that she "will not be stepping in to settle the debt". "The Times" reported in September 2021 that Sarah and Andrew had reached a legal agreement with the property's previous owner, and would sell the house to pay back their debt. The owner agreed to receive £3.4 million, half of the amount that she was owed, as she had been under impression that Sarah and Andrew were dealing with financial troubles. In August 2022, it was reported that Sarah had purchased a £5 million townhouse in Mayfair after the success of her novel "Her Heart for a Compass".


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In May 2010, Sarah was filmed by the "News of the World" offering Mazher Mahmood, an undercover reporter posing as an Indian businessman, access to Prince Andrew for £500,000. On the video made as a documentary source for the story, which is publicly available, Sarah is heard to say, "£500,000 when you can, to me, open doors". She is seen taking away a briefcase containing £40,000 in cash. Exposure surrounding the incident increased Sarah's public profile and notoriety.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: Sterling Publishers substantially increased the print run of "Ashley Learns About Strangers", Sarah's latest book for children; however, the notoriety did not translate into additional book sales. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Sarah explained her behaviour by saying that she had been drinking prior to soliciting the cash, and was "in the gutter at that moment". She also claimed that her intention was initially to help a friend who "needed $38,000 (£28,000) urgently" but she ultimately asked for more money due to her own financial problems.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In November 2016, it was reported that Sarah intended to sue News Group Newspapers (parent company of the "News of the World") and its owner Rupert Murdoch for £25 million in damages citing her "loss in earnings" as well as the subsequent "distress" that the media sting brought to her as the main reasons. In January 2018, it was reported that the actual amount Sarah was seeking was £45 million.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In March 2022 it was reported that the wife of jailed Turkish politician İlhan İşbilen alleged that Sarah received at least £225,000 from businessman Selman Turk, whom Mrs İşbilen is suing for fraud. An additional £25,000 was sent by Turk in October 2019 to the bank account of Sarah's younger daughter, Eugenie, the second instalment of which was referenced "birthday gift", reportedly "to pay for a surprise birthday party for the Duchess". Sarah was owed £225,000 by Pegasus Group Holdings for her role as brand ambassador, but she received the full amount from Turk, who was then set to reclaim the money from Pegasus.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: On 13 January 2012, the Ministry of Justice of Turkey issued an international arrest warrant for Sarah. She had travelled to Turkey in 2008 and covertly filmed a Turkish state orphanage. The Turkish authorities alleged that Sarah made a false declaration when entering the country (in regard to her motives for visiting Turkey), trespassed into a Turkish Government institution, and also invaded the privacy of children. These charges carry sentences of up to 22 years imprisonment. Turkey and Britain have an extradition treaty; however, Home Office officials have stated:


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: Turkey maintains that Sarah distorted information about the orphanage and used an isolated incident in a smear campaign against the Republic of Turkey. Turkey invited international human rights organisations to inspect any orphanage of its choosing to show its transparency in relation to the issue.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: On 5 May 2012, the trial began into the charges brought by the Ankara State Prosecutor's office. Cansu Şahin, representing Ferguson, who was not present, told the Ankara court that her client has apologised and would like to plea-bargain with the prosecution.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: Since her marriage to Prince Andrew, and continuing after the divorce, Sarah has been involved with a number of charities.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 1990, Sarah became patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust. She has since opened most of the charity's various units, including those at Middlesex Hospital, University College London, St James's University Hospital, Cardiff University Hospital and Royal Marsden Hospital. Sarah began her work with people suffering from motor neurone disease in the 1990s. In her capacity as patron of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, she promoted fundraising campaigns for research about the disease and later became president of the International Alliance for ALS. To help and support those affected by drug misuse, she joined therapy sessions at the Chemical Dependency Center and was later made their patron. In 1993, Sarah founded Children in Crisis, a children's charity focused on education and grant making to international programmes. Sarah serves as founder and life president. She founded the charity after meeting a young cancer victim named Anya during her visit to Poland in 1992.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In December 1994, Sarah went to the US to take part in a fundraising event for Peace Links and to launch her own charity, Chances for Children, in the US. Her decision to launch a fundraising event for her charity in the US was criticised by the British press, who claimed that through her "Budgie the Little Helicopter" series she was "expected to earn 400 million pounds over the next five years, with 3 million pounds a year going into her royal pocket" despite her promise to donate part of her earnings to charity. The claims were denied by Sarah's representative, and she later responded to the criticism by saying, "What you all must understand is that the Budgie books were produced in 1987. That's when I gave a large percentage to charity. ... And maybe after costs, after the animation is made, after everything else and the popcorn and everything else, then perhaps in five to ten years, maybe I might receive a little bit of my percentage, and that I hope will be at that time going back into Chances for Children". "Little Red", the doll that was used as a logo for her American charity, later inspired her to write a series of books named after the doll. The proceeds from selling the doll also went to Chances for Children.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In June 1998, Sarah made a brief trip to Bethesda to receive an award from the Journal of Women's Health. She also visited the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center. NIH associate director for communications said, "The Duchess has many opportunities to talk to women via television, at lectures and through print media interviews" and was interested "in learning from NIH scientists what major health messages she should deliver to women, based on the research conducted through NIH." The panelists briefed Sarah on medical research topics and major health messages regarding women. Information was shared on the Women's Health Initiative, obesity, breast cancer, and osteoporosis. Sarah, whose elder daughter Beatrice was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of seven, became a patron of Springboard for Children, a charity that helps students who struggle with reading and writing. Sarah has also described herself as "a little bit dyslexic".


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2003, Sarah joined the American Cancer Society at a congressional briefing. She was a founding supporter of the American Cancer Society's Great American Weigh In, an annual campaign (modelled after the Society's Great American Smoke Out) aimed at raising awareness of the link between excess weight and cancer. In 2004, Sarah was named the official spokesperson of SOS Children's Villages – USA and in 2005 she became a global ambassador for Ronald McDonald House Charities. In 2006, Sarah established The Sarah Ferguson Foundation based in Toronto, which derives funds from Sarah's commercial work and private donations with the aim of supporting charities internationally that serve children and families in dire need. Included under this umbrella organisation is her patronage and support of several British charities, including Mental Disability Rights International, the African-Caribbean Leukaemia Trust, Tommy's, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and CARE International. In 2009, it was reported that despite its income of £250,000 over 18 months, the foundation had spent only £14,200 on grants, £6,300 of which was given to the charitable arm of a South African private game reserve owned by Sir Richard Branson, a friend of Sarah's. Following the report, the foundation released a list that showed they spent around $400,000 on donations in 2008.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2007, Sarah joined the Advisory Council of the Ophelia Project, an American initiative aimed to support people dealing with relational and other non-physical forms of aggression. In 2008, Sarah became patron of Humanitas, a charity focused on providing children with education, healthcare and family support. In the same year, she became an ambassador for New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-poverty campaign. In 2010, Sarah became a supporter of the Mullany Fund, whose aim is to support British students wishing to study medicine or physiotherapy. In 2011, Sarah became the global ambassador for Not For Sale, a charity focused on human slavery. In 2013, Sarah, along with her former husband, the Duke of York and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, founded Key To Freedom, a business structure for women in vulnerable situations in India who can sell their wares through the British retailer Topshop. In 2014, Sarah was appointed an ambassador for the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. In 2015, Sarah revealed her connection with India and polo when she attended as a chief guest of HVR Baroda Cup in New Delhi under the invitation of Harshavardhan Reddy, chairman of HVR Sports.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2016, Sarah collaborated with British contemporary artist Teddy McDonald and her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, to create the first Royal contemporary painting. Titled Royal Love, it was painted on the lawn of Royal Lodge and features positive thoughts and quotes by Sarah and the princesses. The painting was exhibited in London at the Masterpiece Art Fair, Chelsea in June/July 2016 and later auctioned at private dinner. The proceeds from the sale of the painting were donated by McDonald to the charity Children in Crisis. British "GQ" magazine published an exclusive on the creation of the painting. In 2017, Sarah was joined by her daughter Eugenie to mark the second anniversary of the Teenage Cancer Trust unit at Alder Hey Children's Hospital.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: On the 25th anniversary of Children in Crisis's foundation in 2018, Sarah said that working with this charity "gave her a sense of perspective and purpose during tough times". Sarah merged her charity foundation with Street Child, an organisation run by Tom Dannatt in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, of which Sarah has become a patron, and her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, are the ambassadors. Sarah is also a patron of Julia's House, a children's hospice in Corfe Mullen.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In June 2019, Sarah became the patron of Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, an organisation founded in honour of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died in 2016 due to an allergic reaction after consuming a sandwich. Sarah, whose own paternal uncle died following an allergic reaction, was asked by Ednan-Laperouse's parents to become their charity's patron. The organisation is working on a bill called "Natasha's Law", which "requires all food businesses in England and Northern Ireland to list every ingredient in their pre-packaged foods". Later in July, she became an ambassador for the technology infrastructure company Pegasus Group Holdings. Sarah was chosen to initiate "the company's philanthropic endeavors" as they develop an "off-grid renewable energy data center".


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In June 2020, Sarah launched her new charitable foundation called Sarah's Trust. The charity has provided aid for NHS, care home and hospice staff by delivering more than 150,000 items, including food, masks, scrubs, and toiletries. Organisations such as Under One Sky and NOAH Enterprise have helped the foundation by giving sleeping bags to homeless people in the UK. Essentials and supplies have also been sent to Ghana. In March 2022, Sarah visited Denver after being chosen as the keynote speaker at a Junior League of Denver fundraiser. In the same month, she travelled to Poland amid the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian refugees and help her charity the Sarah's Trust in organising goods donated by UK citizens. In the following month, she travelled to Albania and met Afghan refugees at a resort in Golem. In her capacity as chief ambassador of the Montessori Group, Sarah visited Croatia in June 2022 where she promoted the organisation's work on providing help for Ukrainian refugees and supporting children.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2000, Sarah co-produced and served as presenter in a documentary for BBC television called "In Search of the Spirit". In September 2003, she was a co-host for 3 days on BBC Radio 2's afternoon show "Steve Wright". In May 2004, Sarah hosted an eleven-minute production featurette on Universal's DVD "Peter Pan", titled "The Legacy of Pan". Five months later, Walt Disney Feature Animation released a DVD "The Cat That Looked at a King", with Sarah's voice in the role of the Queen; the story is derived from the "Mary Poppins" books by P. L. Travers.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2008, Sarah was a special correspondent to NBC's "Today" for which she presented segments for a series called "From the Heart". In May 2008, her two-part film "The Duchess in Hull" premiered on ITV1, showing Sarah helping a family on a council estate in Hull to improve their lifestyle. In the same year she travelled to Romania and Turkey for the documentary "Duchess and Daughters: Their Secret Mission", shown on ITV1 on 6 November 2008, investigating poor treatment and conditions in children's institutions in those two countries. In August 2009, her documentary "The Duchess on the Estate", which was about Northern Moor, Manchester, was shown on the same network. Her report on a suburb area in Manchester caused criticism for exaggerating crime in the area.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: Sarah had a producing role (credited as "Sarah Ferguson") in the 2009 Jean-Marc Vallée film "The Young Victoria", starring Emily Blunt and featuring a background player role for Sarah's daughter Princess Beatrice. It was Sarah who conceived the idea for a film based upon the early years of Queen Victoria. Since her marriage to Prince Andrew, she had been interested in the Queen, and had written two books about her with the help of a historian. The Victoria-Albert relationship in particular drew her into the queen's history, as she believed there were parallels between their marriage and her own with Prince Andrew, as they both "fought for their love" in the midst of public scrutiny.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: Sarah had the leading role on a mini-series on Oprah Winfrey Network, titled "Finding Sarah", which premiered in June 2011. She talked about her struggles through life and financial issues in the show.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In 2019, Sarah said that she was producing a TV documentary about Prince Albert's mother Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. The documentary will focus on her life, particularly her separation from her husband Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In April 2020, Sarah launched a new series on her YouTube channel, called "Storytime with Fergie and Friends", in which she and a number of authors, including Nanette Newman and Imogen Edwards-Jones, read stories to children from their homes during the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From March to July 2021, the same channel showed 10 short episodes of "Little Red News" featuring characters from Ferguson's book series, "Little Red".


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: In May 2022, she co-founded the independent production house Vestapol Films, which is based in Paris.


title: Sarah, Duchess of York

text: During her marriage Sarah was styled "Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York". On 21 August 1996, letters patent declared that former wives of British princes, other than widows who did not remarry, were not entitled to the style of Her Royal Highness. Meanwhile, divorced peeresses (such as duchesses) cannot "claim the privileges or status of Peeresses which they derived from their husbands", but may continue to use the peeress title. The Royal Household refers to Sarah as "Sarah, Duchess of York", but on at least two occasions (the announcements of the engagements of her daughters), she has been referred to together with her former husband as "The Duke and Duchess of York".


title: Agnosticism

text: Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."


title: Agnosticism

text: The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word "agnostic" in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe."


title: Agnosticism

text: Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife; and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about the existence of "the gods".


title: Agnosticism

text: Being a scientist, above all else, Huxley presented agnosticism as a form of demarcation. A hypothesis with no supporting, objective, testable evidence is not an objective, scientific claim. As such, there would be no way to test said hypotheses, leaving the results inconclusive. His agnosticism was not compatible with forming a belief as to the truth, or falsehood, of the claim at hand. Karl Popper would also describe himself as an agnostic. According to philosopher William L. Rowe, in this strict sense, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.


title: Agnosticism

text: George H. Smith, while admitting that the narrow definition of atheist was the common usage definition of that word, and admitting that the broad definition of agnostic was the common usage definition of that word, promoted broadening the definition of atheist and narrowing the definition of agnostic. Smith rejects agnosticism as a third alternative to theism and atheism and promotes terms such as agnostic atheism (the view of those who do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, but claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or inherently unknowable) and agnostic theism (the view of those who believe in the existence of a deity(s), but claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or inherently unknowable).


title: Agnosticism

text: "Agnostic" () was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869 to describe his philosophy, which rejects all claims of spiritual or mystical knowledge.


title: Agnosticism

text: Early Christian church leaders used the Greek word "gnosis" (knowledge) to describe "spiritual knowledge". Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular; Huxley used the term in a broader, more abstract sense.


title: Agnosticism

text: Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, evidence-based inquiry.


title: Agnosticism

text: The term "Agnostic" is also cognate with the Sanskrit word "Ajñasi" which translates literally to "not knowable", and relates to the ancient Indian philosophical school of Ajñana, which proposes that it is impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it is useless and disadvantageous for final salvation.


title: Agnosticism

text: In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean "not knowable".


title: Agnosticism

text: In technical and marketing literature, "agnostic" can also mean independence from some parameters—for example, "platform agnostic" (referring to cross-platform software)


title: Agnosticism

text: Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt. He asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (e.g. tautologies such as "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three corners").


title: Agnosticism

text: Throughout the history of Hinduism there has been a strong tradition of philosophic speculation and skepticism.


title: Agnosticism

text: The Rig Veda takes an agnostic view on the fundamental question of how the universe and the gods were created. Nasadiya Sukta ("Creation Hymn") in the tenth chapter of the Rig Veda says:


title: Agnosticism

text: presented arguments attempting to rationally prove the existence of God. The skeptical empiricism of David Hume, the antinomies of Immanuel Kant, and the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard convinced many later philosophers to abandon these attempts, regarding it impossible to construct any unassailable proof for the existence or non-existence of God.


title: Agnosticism

text: Hume was Huxley's favourite philosopher, calling him "the Prince of Agnostics". Diderot wrote to his mistress, telling of a visit by Hume to the Baron D'Holbach, and describing how a word for the position that Huxley would later describe as agnosticism did not seem to exist, or at least was not common knowledge, at the time.


title: Agnosticism

text: Raised in a religious environment, Charles Darwin (1809–1882) studied to be an Anglican clergyman. While eventually doubting parts of his faith, Darwin continued to help in church affairs, even while avoiding church attendance. Darwin stated that it would be "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist". Although reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."


title: Agnosticism

text: Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms agnostic and agnosticism were created by Huxley (1825–1895) to sum up his thoughts on contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (William Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer). Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter of September 23, 1860, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley discussed his views extensively:


title: Agnosticism

text: William Stewart Ross (1844–1906) wrote under the name of Saladin. He was associated with Victorian Freethinkers and the organization the British Secular Union. He edited the "Secular Review" from 1882; it was renamed "Agnostic Journal and Eclectic Review" and closed in 1907. Ross championed agnosticism in opposition to the atheism of Charles Bradlaugh as an open-ended spiritual exploration.


title: Agnosticism

text: Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) declared "Why I Am Not a Christian" in 1927, a classic statement of agnosticism.


title: Agnosticism

text: He calls upon his readers to "stand on their own two feet and look fair and square at the world with a fearless attitude and a free intelligence".


title: Agnosticism

text: In 1939, Russell gave a lecture on "The existence and nature of God", in which he characterized himself as an atheist. He said:


title: Agnosticism

text: However, later in the same lecture, discussing modern non-anthropomorphic concepts of God, Russell states:


title: Agnosticism

text: In Russell's 1947 pamphlet, "Am I An Atheist or an Agnostic?" (subtitled "A Plea For Tolerance in the Face of New Dogmas"), he ruminates on the problem of what to call himself:


title: Agnosticism

text: In 1965, Christian theologian Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) published "The Christian Agnostic", in which he argues:


title: Agnosticism

text: Although radical and unpalatable to conventional theologians, Weatherhead's "agnosticism" falls far short of Huxley's, and short even of "weak agnosticism":


title: Agnosticism

text: Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899), an Illinois lawyer and politician who evolved into a well-known and sought-after orator in 19th-century America, has been referred to as the "Great Agnostic".


title: Agnosticism

text: Canon Bernard Iddings Bell (1886–1958), a popular cultural commentator, Episcopal priest, and author, lauded the necessity of agnosticism in "Beyond Agnosticism: A Book for Tired Mechanists", calling it the foundation of "all intelligent Christianity". Agnosticism was a temporary mindset in which one rigorously questioned the truths of the age, including the way in which one believed God. His view of Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine was that they were not denouncing true Christianity but rather "a gross perversion of it". Part of the misunderstanding stemmed from ignorance of the concepts of God and religion. Historically, a god was any real, perceivable force that ruled the lives of humans and inspired admiration, love, fear, and homage; religion was the practice of it. Ancient peoples worshiped gods with real counterparts, such as Mammon (money and material things), Nabu (rationality), or Ba'al (violent weather); Bell argued that modern peoples were still paying homage—with their lives and their children's lives—to these old gods of wealth, physical appetites, and self-deification. Thus, if one attempted to be agnostic passively, he or she would incidentally join the worship of the world's gods.


title: Agnosticism

text: In "Unfashionable Convictions" (1931), he criticized the Enlightenment's complete faith in human sensory perception, augmented by scientific instruments, as a means of accurately grasping Reality. Firstly, it was fairly new, an innovation of the Western World, which Aristotle invented and Thomas Aquinas revived among the scientific community. Secondly, the divorce of "pure" science from human experience, as manifested in American Industrialization, had completely altered the environment, often disfiguring it, so as to suggest its insufficiency to human needs. Thirdly, because scientists were constantly producing more data—to the point where no single human could grasp it all at once—it followed that human intelligence was incapable of attaining a complete understanding of universe; therefore, to admit the mysteries of the unobserved universe was to be "actually" scientific.


title: Agnosticism

text: Bell believed that there were two other ways that humans could perceive and interact with the world. "Artistic experience" was how one expressed meaning through speaking, writing, painting, gesturing—any sort of communication which shared insight into a human's inner reality. "Mystical experience" was how one could "read" people and harmonize with them, being what we commonly call love. In summary, man was a scientist, artist, and lover. Without exercising all three, a person became "lopsided".


title: Agnosticism

text: Bell considered a humanist to be a person who cannot rightly ignore the other ways of knowing. However, humanism, like agnosticism, was also temporal, and would eventually lead to either scientific materialism or theism. He lays out the following thesis:


title: Agnosticism

text: Demographic research services normally do not differentiate between various types of non-religious respondents, so agnostics are often classified in the same category as atheists or other non-religious people.


title: Agnosticism

text: A 2010 survey published in "Encyclopædia Britannica" found that the non-religious people or the agnostics made up about 9.6% of the world's population.


title: Agnosticism

text: A November–December 2006 poll published in the "Financial Times" gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The rates of agnosticism in the United States were at 14%, while the rates of agnosticism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (20%), Spain (30%), Great Britain (35%), Germany (25%), and France (32%).


title: Agnosticism

text: A study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that about 16% of the world's people, the third largest group after Christianity and Islam, have no religious affiliation.


title: Agnosticism

text: According to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center, agnostics made up 3.3% of the US adult population.


title: Agnosticism

text: In the "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey", conducted by the Pew Research Center, 55% of agnostic respondents expressed "a belief in God or a universal spirit",


title: Agnosticism

text: whereas 41% stated that they thought that they felt a tension "being non-religious in a society where most people are religious".


title: Agnosticism

text: According to the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 22% of Australians have "no religion", a category that includes agnostics.


title: Agnosticism

text: of Vietnamese are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in a god. An official European Union survey reported that 3% of the EU population is unsure about their belief in a god or spirit.


title: Agnosticism

text: Agnosticism is criticized from a variety of standpoints. Some atheists criticize the use of the term agnosticism as functionally indistinguishable from atheism; this results in frequent criticisms of those who adopt the term as avoiding the atheist label.


title: Agnosticism

text: Theistic critics claim that agnosticism is impossible in practice, since a person can live only either as if God did not exist ("etsi deus non-daretur"), or as if God did exist ("etsi deus daretur").


title: Agnosticism

text: According to Pope Benedict XVI, strong agnosticism in particular contradicts itself in affirming the power of reason to know scientific truth. He blames the exclusion of reasoning from religion and ethics for dangerous pathologies such as crimes against humanity and ecological disasters.


title: Agnosticism

text: "Agnosticism", said Benedict, "is always the fruit of a refusal of that knowledge which is in fact offered to man ... The knowledge of God has always existed". He asserted that agnosticism is a choice of comfort, pride, dominion, and utility over truth, and is opposed by the following attitudes: the keenest self-criticism, humble listening to the whole of existence, the persistent patience and self-correction of the scientific method, a readiness to be purified by the truth.


title: Agnosticism

text: The Catholic Church sees merit in examining what it calls "partial agnosticism", specifically those systems that "do not aim at constructing a complete philosophy of the unknowable, but at excluding special kinds of truth, notably religious, from the domain of knowledge". However, the Church is historically opposed to a full denial of the capacity of human reason to know God. The Council of the Vatican declares, "God, the beginning and end of all, can, by the natural light of human reason, be known with certainty from the works of creation".


title: Agnosticism

text: Blaise Pascal argued that even if there were truly no evidence for God, agnostics should consider what is now known as Pascal's Wager: the infinite expected value of acknowledging God is always greater than the finite expected value of not acknowledging his existence, and thus it is a safer "bet" to choose God.


title: Agnosticism

text: According to Richard Dawkins, a distinction between agnosticism and atheism is unwieldy and depends on how close to zero a person is willing to rate the probability of existence for any given god-like entity. About himself, Dawkins continues, "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." Dawkins also identifies two categories of agnostics; "Temporary Agnostics in Practice" (TAPs), and "Permanent Agnostics in Principle" (PAPs). He states that "agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP category. Either he exists or he doesn't. It is a scientific question; one day we may know the answer, and meanwhile we can say something pretty strong about the probability" and considers PAP a "deeply inescapable kind of fence-sitting".


title: Agnosticism

text: A related concept is ignosticism, the view that a coherent definition of a deity must be put forward before the question of the existence of a deity can be meaningfully discussed. If the chosen definition is not coherent, the ignostic holds the noncognitivist view that the existence of a deity is meaningless or empirically untestable. A. J. Ayer, Theodore Drange, and other philosophers see both atheism and agnosticism as incompatible with ignosticism on the grounds that atheism and agnosticism accept the statement "a deity exists" as a meaningful proposition that can be argued for or against.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Kangna Amardeep Ranaut (; born 23 March 1987) is an Indian actress and filmmaker who works in Hindi films. Known for her work in female-led films, she is the recipient of several awards, including four National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards, and has featured six times in "Forbes India" Celebrity 100 list. In 2020, the Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian award.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: At the age of sixteen, Ranaut took up modelling for a brief period of time. After being trained under theatre director Arvind Gaur, she made her film debut in the 2006 thriller "", for which she was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She received praise for portraying emotionally intense characters in the dramas "Woh Lamhe..." (2006), "Life in a... Metro" (2007) and "Fashion" (2008). For the last of these, she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in the commercially successful films "" (2009) and "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai" (2010) but was criticised for being typecast in neurotic roles. A comic role in "Tanu Weds Manu" (2011) was well-received, though this was followed by a series of brief, glamorous roles in films that failed to propel her career forward.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut's career prospects improved in 2013 when she played a mutant in the science fiction film "Krrish 3", one of the highest-grossing Indian films. She went on to win two consecutive National Film Awards for Best Actress for playing an abandoned bride in the comedy-drama "Queen" (2014) and a dual role in the comedy sequel "" (2015), which was the biggest-earning female-led Hindi film at the time. This was followed by several commercial failures and a decline in stardom. Her sole successful venture in this period was her co-directorial venture, the biopic "" (2019). Her portrayal of the titular warrior in it and her part as a sportswoman in "Panga" (2020) jointly earned her a fourth National Film Award.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In 2020, Ranaut launched her own production company named Manikarnika Films under which she works as director and producer. She is credited in the media as one of the best-dressed celebrities in the country, and is known to be outspoken. The opinions she has voiced, aligning with right-wing ideologies, along with frequent clashes in her personal and professional relationships have sparked controversy.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Kangna Amardeep Ranaut was born on 23 March 1987 at Bhambla (now Surajpur), a small town in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, into a Rajput family. Her mother, Asha Ranaut, is a school teacher, and her father, Amardeep Ranaut, is a businessman. She has an elder sister, Rangoli Chandel, who as of 2014 works as her manager and a younger brother, Akshat. Her great-grandfather, Sarju Singh Ranaut, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly and her grandfather was an officer for the Indian Administrative Service. She grew up in a joint family at their ancestral haveli (mansion) in Bhambla, and described her childhood as "simple and happy".


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: According to Ranaut, she was "stubborn and rebellious" while growing up: "If my father would gift my brother a plastic gun and get a doll for me, I would not accept that. I questioned the discrimination." She did not subscribe to the stereotypes that were expected of her and experimented with fashion from a young age, often pairing up accessories and clothes that would seem "bizarre" to her neighbours. Ranaut was educated at the DAV School in Chandigarh, where she pursued science as her core subject, remarking that she was "very studious" and "always paranoid about [...] results". She initially intended to become a doctor on the insistence of her parents. However, a failed unit test in chemistry during her twelfth grade led Ranaut to reconsider her career prospects and despite preparing for the All India Pre Medical Test, she did not turn up for the exam. Determined to find her "space and freedom", she relocated to Delhi at the age of sixteen. Her decision not to pursue medicine led to constant feuding with her parents and her father refused to sponsor a pursuit he considered to be aimless.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In Delhi, Ranaut was unsure which career to choose; the Elite Modelling Agency were impressed by her looks and suggested that she model for them. She took on a few modelling assignments, but generally disliked the career as she found "no scope for creativity". Ranaut decided to shift focus towards acting and joined the Asmita Theatre Group, where she trained under the theatre director Arvind Gaur. She participated in Gaur's theatre workshop at the India Habitat Centre, acting in several of his plays, including the Girish Karnad-scripted "Taledanda". During a performance, when one of the male actors went missing, Ranaut played his part along with her original role of a woman. A positive reaction from the audience prompted her to relocate to Mumbai to pursue a career in film and she enrolled herself for a four-month acting course in Asha Chandra's drama school.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut struggled with her meager earnings during this period, eating only "bread and aachar (pickle)". Refusing her father's financial assistance led to a rift in their relationship which she later regretted. Her relatives were unhappy with her decision to enter the film-making industry, and they did not correspond with her for several years. She reconciled with them after the release of "Life in a... Metro" in 2007.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In 2004, the producers Ramesh Sharma and Pahlaj Nilani announced that Ranaut would make her film debut with the Deepak Shivdasani-directed "I Love You Boss". The following year, an agent took her to the office of the producer Mahesh Bhatt, where she interacted with the director Anurag Basu and auditioned for the lead role in the romantic thriller "". Bhatt felt she was too young for the role and signed Chitrangada Singh instead. However, Singh was later unavailable to do the film and Ranaut was contracted as a replacement for "Gangster", opting out of "I Love You Boss". She was cast in the central role of Simran, an alcoholic woman caught in a romantic triangle between a notorious gangster (Shiney Ahuja) and a sympathetic friend (Emraan Hashmi). Ranaut was only seventeen while filming and said that she "had difficulty first in understanding and then unwinding from the character", describing her craft as "raw and immature". Released in 2006, "Gangster" emerged as a critical and commercial success. Raja Sen of "Rediff.com" said that "Kangana is a remarkable find, the actress coming across with great conviction". She won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut, along with various other debut awards.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut's next role was in the Mohit Suri-directed drama "Woh Lamhe..." (2006), a semi-biographical film based on the schizophrenic actress Parveen Babi and her relationship with the director Mahesh Bhatt. She said that portraying Babi had left her emotionally drained, as she had begun to "feel her desolation and loneliness." The film critic Subhash K. Jha of "Sify" wrote that Ranaut was the first Bollywood actress since Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi "who isn't scared to strip her soul naked for the camera", adding that she is a "hugely expressive actress with a phenomenal ability to convey torment, hurt and incredulity through the eyes". Despite positive reviews, the film underperformed at the box office.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: The following year, Ranaut portrayed an aspiring musician in Suneel Darshan's musical thriller "Shakalaka Boom Boom", alongside Bobby Deol, Upen Patel and Celina Jaitly. The film's production was marred by a dispute between Ranaut and Darshan; she objected to her voice being dubbed by another artist, but he insisted that he needed a particular "twang and accent" for her character. "India Today" described the film as an "amateur mess" and the film proved to be a box office flop. She next reunited with Anurag Basu for the ensemble drama "Life in a... Metro", playing the supporting role of Neha, a shrewd socialite engaged in an affair with her married boss (Kay Kay Menon). Despite a poor initial run at the box office, the film emerged as a profitable venture. Khalid Mohamed of "Hindustan Times" was critical of the film, noting its lack of originality and realism. In a more positive review, Raja Sen wrote that Ranaut "is refreshing [...] and manages to herd her emotions well, playing a complex role but hardly ever overreaching", but criticised her delivery of English lines. For her role, Ranaut was awarded the Stardust Award for Breakthrough Performance – Female.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut next portrayed a village girl in "Dhaam Dhoom" (2008), a Tamil romantic thriller, opposite Jayam Ravi. Production on the film was temporarily halted when the director, Jeeva, died of cardiac arrest and the film was completed by the crew members. A review carried by "Post" wrote that Ranaut had "little scope" in a role that did not suit her. "India Today" described her next film, the drama "Fashion" (2008), as a "landmark" in her career. Set against the backdrop of the Indian fashion industry, the film features Ranaut as Shonali Gujral, a substance abusing supermodel struggling to cope with her foundering career. Because the media speculated that her role was based on the former model Geetanjali Nagpal (which Ranaut denied), the Delhi Commission for Women ordered a stay on the film's release, approving it only after a script narration. With a worldwide revenue of , "Fashion" was a commercial success. Ranaut's performance drew unanimous critical acclaim. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama praised her confident portrayal of the character, and Nikhat Kazmi added that she "does an exquisite metamorphosis from a wispy, high-strung, nervous child-woman to a stunning ramp diva." Ranaut's portrayal earned her several awards, including the National Film Award and Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: The supernatural horror film "" from director Mohit Suri was Ranaut's first film release of 2009, in which she played a successful model who is possessed by a ghost. The film co-starred Emraan Hashmi and Adhyayan Suman and proved to be a financial success. Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" noted that Ranaut was becoming stereotyped in roles that required her to be "hysterical", adding that she needed a "radical change of image". Also that year, she played the leading lady in the drama "Vaada Raha" and the Telugu action film "Ek Niranjan", neither of which were particularly notable.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In a brief role in Anurag Basu's romantic thriller "Kites" (2010), Ranaut portrayed the fiancée of Hrithik Roshan's character. She said that she felt "cheated" after watching the film, as her role proved to be much smaller than what she had initially signed on for. She then portrayed fictional film actress Rehana in the Milan Luthria-directed gangster film "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai". Also starring Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi and Prachi Desai, the film chronicles the rise and subsequent fall of an underworld don (Devgn) in the 1970s. Ranaut said that her character was "a mix" of the actress Madhubala and the gangster Haji Mastan's wife and that to prepare she observed the work of the actresses Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi. The film was one of the most successful releases of the year and garnered positive reviews from critics. Sudhish Kamath of "The Hindu" labelled her a "delight" and "Mid-Day" Sarita Tanwar praised her for being "totally convincing" in the role. After playing a television reporter in the thriller "Knock Out", Ranaut actively looked for a comedy and found the role in Anees Bazmee's "No Problem", but both films failed to propel her career forward.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: According to Bollywood Hungama, after establishing a reputation for portraying neurotic characters, Ranaut was seeking projects that would be "less emotionally exhausting" for her. Her first release of 2011 was Anand L. Rai's "Tanu Weds Manu", a romantic comedy opposite R. Madhavan, which Ranaut considers a "game changer" for her. Rai stated that he cast her for the role to illustrate that the actress was capable of playing other roles and that her character in the film was unlike any of those that she had played previously. Critical reaction to the film was mixed, though Ranaut's performance was praised. Rajeev Masand wrote, "Kangana Ranaut is a pleasant surprise in a cheery, upbeat part that we haven't seen her take on before. She rises to the challenge, only hampered occasionally by her mangled dialogue delivery." Ranaut received Best Actress nominations at several award ceremonies, including Screen and Zee Cine.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut followed the success of "Tanu Weds Manu" by starring in a series of brief, glamorous roles in four other films of 2011: "Game", "Double Dhamaal", "Rascals" and "Miley Naa Miley Hum". With the exception of "Double Dhamaal", none of these films performed well. In a review for "Rascals", Gaurav Malani of "The Times of India" wrote: "Kangana Ranaut is ill at ease in comedy. She struggles to hold her own and emerges as a bimbo in her act." Ranaut later said that she did some of these films due to a dearth of film offers. The following year, Ranaut portrayed a supporting role opposite Ajay Devgn in Priyadarshan's action thriller "Tezz", another box office flop.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: The director Sanjay Gupta cast Ranaut in a brief role opposite John Abraham in the crime thriller "Shootout at Wadala" (2013) due to her ability to stand out in a predominantly male-centric film. The "Daily News and Analysis" Tushar Joshi wrote that her role was written "to provide the sex quotient" and critic Vinayak Chakravorty opined that she "does not get much scope [...] beyond the steamy lovemaking grind". Commercially, the film performed moderately well.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut achieved success later in 2013 for her portrayal a shapeshifting mutant in Rakesh Roshan's science fiction film "Krrish 3", alongside Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra and Vivek Oberoi. She initially declined the offer, given her disappointment with her role in "Kites", which Rakesh Roshan produced. After other actresses had similarly turned down the role, Roshan approached Ranaut again and promised a better role, and she eventually accepted. Critics thought that "Krrish 3" was entertaining but lacking in originality, though her performance garnered praise. Sarita Tanwar of "Daily News and Analysis" said "she is delightful as an alien making the weird hair and clothes work for her. She even manages to make you feel her pain. Quite an accomplishment that!" Earning worldwide, it emerged as one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time, becoming Ranaut's most financially profitable venture. Ranaut later played the eponymous lead in the musical drama "Rajjo", a critical and commercial failure. Her portrayal of a nautch girl was largely criticised, with Rediff.com's Paloma Sharma commenting that she "struggles with her Mumbaiyya dialogues and is not as graceful in the dance sequences as one would have expected".


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In 2014, Ranaut established herself in Hindi cinema when she featured in the coming-of-age dramedy "Queen"; she also co-wrote the dialogues with Anvita Dutt Guptan. She played Rani, a naive girl who embarks on her honeymoon alone after her fiancé (Rajkummar Rao) calls off their wedding. Ranaut, who describes herself as "independent and confident", reflected that the role was one of the toughest she had played, as the character's personality traits contrasted with her own. The film and Ranaut's performance received unanimous acclaim from critics. Devesh Sharma of "Filmfare" wrote that the fact that she "flits from one aspect of her character to another without breaking stride shows her maturity as an actor". The film emerged as a box office hit, and she won both the Filmfare Award and the National Film Award for Best Actress for it. Ranaut followed the success by playing an aggressive politician in the black comedy "Revolver Rani" and a medical intern in the political drama "Ungli" (both 2014). Also that year, she made her production and directorial debut with an English language short film entitled "The Touch", dealing with the relationship between a four-year-old boy and a dog; she co-wrote the screenplay with an Australian writer and filmed it in America.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: The following year, Ranaut starred in "" (2015), a sequel to "Tanu Weds Manu", in which she portrayed dual rolesshe reprised the character of Tanuja from the original and also portrayed an aspiring athlete in it. In preparation for the latter role, she interacted with students of the University of Delhi in disguise; in addition, she attended workshops to learn the Haryanvi language and trained in the sport of triple jump. The film received positive reviews from critics and Ranaut's performance was considered its prime asset. Sweta Kaushal of "Hindustan Times" praised her for perfecting the body languages and accents of the two women, and Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV wrote that she "fleshes out this pair of distinct individuals with such energy and finesse that it becomes difficult at times to tell that it is the same actress playing the two roles". "Tanu Weds Manu Returns" earned over worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing Bollywood film featuring a female protagonist. Ranaut won a Filmfare Critics Award and a second consecutive National Film Award for Best Actress, and received an additional Best Actress nomination at Filmfare.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Also in 2015, Ranaut appeared in the romantic comedies "I Love NY" (a production delayed since 2013) and Nikkhil Advani's "Katti Batti", both of which failed at the box office. The latter saw her play opposite Imran Khan as a cancer patient, a role that critic Uday Bhatia of "Mint" thought "lack[ed] the sort of definition she's had in her last few roles".


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: After a year-long absence from the screen, Ranaut starred as Julia, a 1940s heroine and stunt-woman in Vishal Bhardwaj's romance "Rangoon" (2017). Modelled on the actress Fearless Nadia, Ranaut played the part as an "amalgamation of many characters" from that era, and was particularly drawn towards the "fierceness and sensuality" she found in her. She learned horse-riding and sword fighting and performed her own stunts. Media reports suggested a feud between Ranaut and Kapoor, and although they denied these, both stars publicly commented against the other. "Rangoon" received generally positive reviews, with praise drawn to Ranaut's performance. Rohit Vats of "Hindustan Times" labelled Ranaut as "terrific", and NDTV ranked Ranaut as one of the best actress of the year. She received a nomination for the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. In the same year, Ranaut starred in "Simran", a crime comedy by Hansal Mehta, in which she played a Gujarati immigrant in the United States involved in criminal activities. She shared the screenwriting credit with Apurva Asrani for improvising several dialogues on set, but Asrani accused Ranaut and Mehta for not valuing his contributions to the script. Ranaut's performance in "Simran" was praised. Both "Rangoon" and "Simran" failed at the box office.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: At the 67th National Film Awards, Ranaut was awarded a fourth Best Actress Award for "" (2019) and "Panga" (2020). For the former, a biopic of the Indian freedom fighter Rani of Jhansi, she also served as a co-director when Krish left the film after frequently clashing with the actress. Her co-star Sonu Sood also quit the production due to disagreements with her. Ranaut subsequently reshot a significant portion of the film, due to which its production cost doubled. Rajeev Masand considered the film to be "a deliberately simplistic film; an old-fashioned patriotic saga told in the broadest of strokes, and with full nationalist fervor", but he commended Ranaut for "command[ing] the screen with a fiery, arresting presence, never letting your attention wander away from her". It performed moderately well at the box office. In her second film release of 2019, Ranaut reunited with Rajkummar Rao in the black comedy "Judgementall Hai Kya", in which she played a mentally ill woman. Shubhra Gupta considered her to be "terrific" in the part and found "connections between what's happening on screen and Ranaut's off-screen seemingly off-kilter joustings which routinely make so much news of the wrong kind." It underperformed at the box office. She received Filmfare Award nominations for her performances in both films.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut began the new decade with Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's sports film "Panga". She portrayed a young mother and homemaker who trains to stage a comeback in kabaddi. Anupama Chopra of "Film Companion" noted the sensitivity in her performance. In 2020, Ranaut founded her production company, Manikarnika Films, and the next year, appeared in the biopic "Thalaivii" (2021), in which she and Arvind Swamy played the actor-turned-politicians J. Jayalalithaa and M. G. Ramachandran, respectively. The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, who generally praised her performance. Baradwaj Rangan stated that Jayalalithaa "channels and mimics the lack of power, the frustrations, the disappointments and the fact of what it meant to be a woman in politics back then", and complimented Ranaut for "[putting] all of this across beautifully"; in contrast, Srivatsan S. from "The Hindu" believed she was miscast in the role, adding that Swamy's role is more lengthy than that of Ranaut. Her performance gained her a SIIMA Award for Best Actress – Tamil.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In 2022, Ranaut hosted the reality show "Lock Upp", which streamed on Alt Balaji and MX Player to strong viewership. She then played a spy in the action film "Dhaakad". It emerged as Ranaut's eighth box office bomb among her last nine films, with publications such as Bollywood Hungama and Box Office India taking note of her waning popularity.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut will next portray an Indian Air Force pilot in Sarvesh Mewara's "Tejas", Indira Gandhi in her second directorial project, "Emergency", and will star in a sequel to the 2005 Tamil film "Chandramukhi". She will also produce the black comedy film "Tiku Weds Sheru", starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Avneet Kaur.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut has stated that her initial years in the film industry were marred with difficulties as she was unprepared to be an actress. She was conscious of her poor command of the English language and struggled to "fit in". In a 2013 interview with "Daily News and Analysis", Ranaut recollected:


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: "People in the industry treated me like I didn't deserve to be spoken to and I was some unwanted object. I couldn't speak English fluently and people made fun of me for that. So dealing with rejection became a part of life. ... All that has taken a toll, I guess. I find it hard to deal with praise. Today, when people say that I have made it and made it on my own, I feel like locking up myself somewhere ... It scares me."


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: During the struggle, Ranaut found support in the actor Aditya Pancholi and his wife Zarina Wahab and considered them her "family away from home". She became embroiled in a well publicised scandal when the media speculated on the nature of her relationship with Pancholi. She declined to speak about it openly, although she made several public appearances with him. In 2007 it was reported that Ranaut had filed a police complaint against Pancholi for physically assaulting her under the influence of alcohol. The following year Pancholi confirmed the affair in an interview, saying that he had been cohabiting with Ranaut in the past and accused her of owing him . In response, Ranaut's spokesperson said that "after physically assaulting her in the middle of a road, he has no right to expect anything from her", adding that she had "already given to [him] as a goodwill gesture". Ranaut later said that the incident had left her "physically and mentally" damaged.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: While filming "Raaz: The Mystery Continues" in 2008, Ranaut began a romantic relationship with co-star Adhyayan Suman. On Suman's insistence that he focus on his professional career, the couple separated the following year. From 2010 to 2012, Ranaut was involved in a long-distance romance with Nicholas Lafferty, an English doctor; she described the relationship as "the most normal" she ever had, but the couple split amicably as she was not ready for marriage. She has since maintained that she will never get married, and has expressed a desire to not be bound by a relationship. In 2016, Hrithik Roshan, her co-star from "Krrish 3", filed a lawsuit against Ranaut accusing her of cyber stalking and harassment. Denying the charges, Ranaut filed a counter-charge against Roshan, claiming that his lawsuit was an attempt to cover-up their affair for the benefit of his divorce proceedings. The case was closed later that year owing to lack of evidence.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut lives in Mumbai with her sister Rangoli, who was the victim of an acid attack in 2006. She makes yearly visits to her hometown of Bhambla. A practicing Hindu, Ranaut follows the teachings of the spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda and considers meditation to be "the highest form of worshipping God". She practices vegetarianism and was listed as "India's hottest vegetarian" in a poll conducted by PETA in 2013. Since 2009 Ranaut has been studying the dance form of kathak from the Nateshwar Nritya Kala Mandir. She has said that the technical process of filmmaking is of tremendous interest to her, and to better her understanding of it Ranaut enrolled in a two-month screenplay writing course at the New York Film Academy in 2014. In an interview with "Filmfare" she said that despite her stardom, she wants to lead a normal life: "I don't want to lose my rights as a common person to learn and grow".


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: In the book "Acting Smart: Your Ticket to Showbiz", Tisca Chopra describes Ranaut as a "free-spirited, original creative" person "who cannot really be slotted in a particular mould". Ranaut is particularly known for her forthrightness in expressing her opinions in public on issues ranging from film to feminism. A televised 2013 interview hosted by Anupama Chopra in which Ranaut spoke out against gender bias and nepotism in Bollywood went viral online, which led Sunaina Kumar of "Tehelka" to write: "In this age of cookie-cutter heroines with stock responses, Kangana Ranaut is refreshingly real and honest." Ranaut had a public fallout with the filmmaker Karan Johar when she accused him of nepotism during a chat show appearance in 2017. She has since continued to advocate against nepotism in the industry, more so after the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, when she accused influential film professionals of having "systematically sabotaged" his career.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut identifies with right-wing ideologies, and is a supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An active commenter on social media, Ranaut often expresses political views, speaks of her religious affiliation and activity, and voices criticism of liberals. Ranaut's direct ways and confrontational manner, as evidenced in several well-reported public clashes with colleagues around her views, have attracted some media scrutiny. In May 2021, Twitter permanently suspended Ranaut's account for repeated violations of the company's abusive behaviour and hateful conduct policies.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Analysing Ranaut's career, the journalist Parmita Uniyal, in 2014, noted that she "loves to challenge herself with tricky roles and manages to add a different dimension to her character every time." A reviewer for Rediff.com described her as a "director's actress" who is susceptible to both "shine and crumble under the right/wrong guidance". Anand L. Rai (the director of "Tanu Weds Manu") says that Ranaut actively pursues roles in which she can "work in her own space and not become a mere prop in the male-dominated Bollywood". Alongside actress Vidya Balan, Ranaut has been credited for spearheading a movement that breaks stereotypes of a Hindi film heroine by playing the protagonist in films not starring a well-known male star. Following the success of "Queen" and "Tanu Weds Manu Returns", "Deccan Chronicle" labelled her as "one of the most bankable actresses in the industry", and "Daily News and Analysis" reported that she had emerged as one of the highest-paid actresses in Bollywood. After "Rangoon", Anupama Chopra hailed Ranaut as "arguably the finest actress working in Hindi cinema today". Ranaut was featured by "Forbes India" in their annual Celebrity 100 list in 2012, 2014–2017, and 2019. In 2017, "Forbes" calculated her annual salary to be , one of the highest amongst actresses in the country. Also that year, she was one of two actresses to feature in "The Indian Express"s listing of the most powerful Indians. Ranaut was featured again in "The Indian Express"s listing of the most powerful Indians in 2018, 2019 and 2022.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut has been cited as a sex symbol and style icon in India. Analysing her off-screen persona, "Hindustan Times" published that she was initially written off by Indian journalists due to her "funny accent" and the negative publicity generated by her troubled relationships; however, her defining fashion choices and her unconventional film roles eventually established her as a star. Ranaut has frequently featured in listings of the most attractive and stylish celebrities in India. She ranked among the top 10 on "The Times of India"s listing of the "Most Desirable Woman" in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015. Ranaut was featured on "Verve"s listing of the most powerful women of 2010 and in 2012 she was named the "Best Dressed Personality" by the Indian edition of "People". In 2013, Ranaut featured as one of the best-dressed women celebrities by "Vogue India". The journalist Jagmeeta Thind Joy credits the actress for her "quirky, almost non-Bollywood take on personal style", adding that she "likes to shock and awe with her choices". She has collaborated with the fashion brand Vero Moda to launch two clothing lines for the company—Marquee and Venice Cruise—in 2015 and 2016, respectively.


title: Kangana Ranaut

text: Ranaut has been the recipient of four National Film Awards: one Best Supporting Actress award for "Fashion" (2008) and three Best Actress awards, one each for "Queen" (2014) and "Tanu Weds Manu Returns" (2015) and a third one for her performances in both "Manikarnika, the Queen of Jhansi" (2019) and "Panga" (2020). She has also won five Filmfare Awards: Best Female Debut and a special award ("Face of the Year") for "Gangster" (2006), Best Supporting Actress for "Fashion", Best Actress for "Queen", and Best Actress – Critics for "Tanu Weds Manu Returns". In 2020, Ranaut was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, by the Government of India, for her contribution in the field of arts.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Hell's Kitchen is an American reality competition cooking show that premiered on Fox on May 30, 2005. The series is hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who created and appeared in the British series of the same name. Each season, two teams of chefs compete for a job as head chef at a restaurant, while working in the kitchen of a restaurant set up in the television studio. A progressive elimination format reduces a field of 20 to 12 to a single winner over the course of each season. In a typical episode, a single contestant is selected for elimination. The series notably features Ramsay's explosive anger towards contestants, which in reality is heavily dramatized for the benefit of the audience. "Hell's Kitchen" has been nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards. A chain of Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen restaurants have been opened, inspired by the show.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: On February 1, 2022, the series was renewed for a twenty-first and twenty-second season. The twenty-first season, subtitled "", premiered in September 2022.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: "Hell's Kitchen" is a reality television show that uses a progressive elimination format to narrow down a field of 20 to 12 aspiring chefs to one single winner over the course of one season. The U.S. version of "Hell's Kitchen" follows the same format of the UK version, although the show is aired on tape delay and not performed live, nor is there audience participation in the elimination of chefs, who are also not celebrities as they are in the UK version. The show is produced at Hell's Kitchen, a modified warehouse in Los Angeles that includes the restaurant, dual kitchen facilities and a dormitory where the chefs reside while on the show. They are also given knife sets that they get to keep, regardless of their progress.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: At the start of each season, Gordon Ramsay breaks the chefs into two teams. With the exception of the first, 18th, and 21st seasons, this puts women on the red team and men on the blue team; each is given a chef's jacket with panels of that color on the shoulders. The chefs remain on these teams throughout most of the competition, but Ramsay may reassign a chef to the other team if the team numbers are uneven, wishes to experiment, or if he feels the chef will perform better on the other team. Each episode typically includes a challenge and a dinner service, followed by the elimination of a chef, or, under rare circumstances, multiple. When only five or six chefs remain, they are brought into a single common team wearing black-paneled jackets. From this point onward, they compete individually during challenges and work together during services to be one of the final two.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: In challenges, the teams or individual is tasked with a cooking challenge by Ramsay. The type of challenges are varied, including ingredient preparation, meal preparation and taste tests. The first challenge of each season is a signature dish cook-off, giving the chefs an opportunity to show Ramsay their cooking.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Each season typically includes one or more challenges that allows teams to construct several dishes either for a banquet to be held the next dinner service or as part of designing their own menus. Other challenges typically include a "taste it, now make it" task, where chefs must attempt to recreate a dish Ramsay has prepared after tasting it only, and a "blind taste-test" where chefs identify ingredients while blindfolded and wearing sound-blocking headphones. Some challenges have been full breakfast or lunch services, where the team completing the service first is declared the winner.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: The winner of the challenge is determined by either a scoring system set for that challenge or by Ramsay's and/or guest judges' opinions. The winning team or chef receives a reward (a recreational activity away from Hell's Kitchen and other potential prizes), while the losing team or chefs are forced to do a mundane task, such as cleaning the kitchens, preparing a specific ingredient for the following dinner, having to prepare the food for both kitchens, and sometimes eating something unsavory (such as food waste blended into a smoothie) for lunch.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: For dinner services, the chefs are expected to work their station (appetizers, meat, fish, or garnish) on the kitchen line to prepare food in coordination with their teammates and to Ramsay's high standards for quality and presentation without his or the sous-chefs' assistance. Dinner service is for about 100 guests (volunteers for the show), with each diner expecting to receive an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert, although the desserts are overlooked for most services. The chefs are given menus and recipe books by Ramsay to study and memorize, which include some of Ramsay's more difficult dishes including risotto and Beef Wellington. The chefs spend several hours before each service preparing their ingredients.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Menus may be customized for a specific dinner service, such as ethnic-themed dishes or plates that resulted from the earlier challenge. Some seasons feature a service allowing for the teams to develop their own menus, which are reviewed by Ramsay for quality and presentation beforehand. Later episodes may feature a private dinner service, where each team must serve a five course meal to 12 guests, with each member leading their teammates to prepare one course. Dinner services may include additional challenges. A chef from each team may be asked to serve a table-side meal for their team, serve celebrities sitting at the kitchen's chef's table, or act as a server for the evening taking and fulfilling orders. After the chefs are on a single black team, the last dinner service before the finale usually has each chef run the pass as a test of their quality control, including deliberate mistakes made by the sous-chefs or Ramsay himself.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: During a service, Ramsay demands that all orders for each course for a table go out together, and will send back entire orders if one item is improperly prepared, such as being over- or undercooked or not seasoned correctly, although he may send out incomplete orders to urge the chefs to get it together. While the chefs are in two teams, Ramsay is assisted by two trusted sous-chefs, each monitoring one of the kitchens, demanding the same standards and alerting Ramsay to any issues. Ramsay's goal is to complete every dinner service, but exceptionally poor kitchen performance by one or both teams will cause him to close their respective halves of the kitchen early and send them back to the dorms, thus ending the dinner service immediately (in the first three seasons, poor kitchen performance resulted in the restaurant being shut down and customers leaving hungry; Season 4 onward resulted in chefs being eliminated early and a professional cast of chefs finishing the service instead after complaints of customers not being fed forced a rule change). Ramsay may also evict individual chefs from the kitchen based on repeated poor performances during a service, and on rare occasions (once every two seasons on average), may eliminate a chef on the spot. Chefs may also walk out when under pressure from Ramsay, which more often than not will lead to their withdrawal from the show.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Once the dinner service is complete, Ramsay gathers everyone in the kitchen, announces which team is the losing team and directs them to select two members of their team as nominees for elimination. It is possible that both teams are declared losers or a different number of chefs may be requested for nomination (usually three chefs in such cases). In some cases, Ramsay has named both teams winners but still requires them to each nominate someone for elimination. This is a group consensus, but Ramsay may occasionally name a chef "best of the worst" or "best of the best" on their team and instruct them to choose the nominees. This concept, however, has faded away over time due to the contestants sometimes making nominations based on personal bias rather than kitchen performance. Ramsay has also on some occasions declared that nobody would be sent home but those cases are generally accompanied by a double elimination the following service, a team reassignment or occur after someone has been sent home on the spot for insubordination or exceptionally poor performance.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Ramsay reassembles the teams in the dining hall and stands about ten feet away from the losing team, before choosing a random contestant on the team to announce the nominations. If there is a winning team, they will often congregate at a nearby table by Ramsay during the process. Once all nominations have been announced, Ramsay will beckon all nominated contestants (in addition, he can also void a nomination or nominate other chefs for elimination if he sees fit) from the losing team and ask each of them to explain why they should stay in Hell's Kitchen. After giving these nominees the chance to defend themselves, Ramsay selects one to hand over their jacket and "leave Hell's Kitchen." On rarer occasions, Ramsay can overrule nominations or even eliminate a chef who has not been nominated, which can include a chef on a winning team.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: The eliminated chef is subsequently shown leaving the restaurant through a hallway while providing some last thoughts on the experience (in cases where contestants are eliminated mid-service, they will often head back to the dorms to retrieve their belongings before their last interview). After dismissing the chefs, Ramsay goes back upstairs to his office. He symbolically hangs the chef's jacket on a sharp hook below their picture in a row with the others, igniting the chef's picture and signaling their departure (in the first season, he simply hung their jacket and the camera would zoom in on the eliminated chef's name). During this scene, there is a voice-over of Ramsay explaining his reasons for eliminating the chef; albeit humorously at times (in the first season, he simply addressed the show's progress on camera to the viewers). If an eliminated chef has performed exceptionally well, Ramsay may allow them to keep their jacket as a token of their success up to that point, if he sees fit.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Chefs may be eliminated from the competition due to medical reasons, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Chefs that violate the competition's rules may be immediately eliminated, mainly during dinner service. Chefs may also exit the competition voluntarily for any other reason; though this is not encouraged, their wishes are ultimately granted (with reasons by Ramsay explained, if applicable).


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Once the number of chefs drops below a certain level (usually once five or six are left) they are awarded black jackets and assembled into a single team. In the most recent seasons, black jackets are awarded by a series of rigorous individual challenges rather than dinner service, with contestants not receiving black jackets being eliminated. Eliminations continue until the final two contestants are left (in some cases involving the final four contestants, a double elimination will occur to leave the final two).


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: In the finale, the final two chefs are each given the opportunity to develop their own menus and lead a brigade of former competitors through a full dinner service on their own. In the first five seasons, this included the opportunity to decorate half of the Hell's Kitchen restaurant to their liking. Prior to the dinner service, the two chefs compete in a challenge to prepare their menus, and the winner will earn the advantage of picking their brigade of chefs first. Ramsay will ensure that all menu items meet his standards for high cuisine prior to service, and he and his sous chefs will oversee the service to make sure that his high quality standards are retained, but does not otherwise get involved, allowing the two remaining chefs to demonstrate their ability to run the line. The finalists are allowed to reassign stations, or even kick their teammates out of the kitchen should they see fit; the latter has happened four times in the show's history, including Ramsay himself kicking one of the brigade members out. On one occasion, a chef had walked out of service under their own accord.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Ramsay uses his own observations and those from the diners and other sources to decide who is the winning chef. He has two doors in his office leading out to the balcony above the Hell's Kitchen seating area. Each chef stands at a door and Ramsay tells them to both turn their handles at the same time. After a commercial break, only the door of the winning chef is unlocked allowing the winner to walk through and be greeted by the crowd below. The winning chef receives two prizes including the opportunity to work as the head chef or executive chef at a restaurant of Ramsay's choosing, as well as a cash prize of $250,000. In a similar manner to the voiceover at each elimination, Ramsay has a voiceover to explain his reasons for choosing that chef as the winner. In addition, the winner hangs a picture of themselves alongside the previous winners that is seen at the restaurant's front entrance.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Gordon Ramsay is the head chef. Jason Thompson is the narrator. Jean-Philippe Susilovic, a Belgian maître d'hôtel, comes from Pétrus, one of Ramsay's London restaurants and appeared in the first seven seasons. Susilovic was also the maître d'hôtel for the first series of the original British version. James Lukanik replaced Susilovic for seasons eight–ten. Susilovic returned for seasons 11 and 12, before being replaced on a permanent basis by Marino Monferrato. Each team also has the services of one of two sous-chefs. Season 10 winner Christina Wilson is the current red team sous-chef, with season 7 runner-up Jason Santos as the current blue team sous-chef.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Previous sous-chefs were MaryAnn Salcedo, Gloria Felix, second season winner Heather West, Andi Van Willigan-Cutspec, Scott Leibfried, James Avery, Aaron Mitrano, and James "Jocky" Petrie. In season 15, Wilson filled in for Van Willigan-Cutspec (who was getting married at the time of filming, but returned for one episode when her reception was one of the themed dinner services for that season). Van Willigan-Cutspec returned in season 16, but was replaced by Wilson again for seasons 17 onwards due to personal reasons.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: The theme song is "Fire" by the Ohio Players. When the U.S. version is broadcast in the U.K., Italy, Portugal and some countries (shown on the table below), it features only the instrumental version. The instrumental version also appeared in the uncensored DVD release for the U.S. version.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: For the show's first two seasons, the "Hell's Kitchen" restaurant set itself was housed in the former studios of Los Angeles television station KCOP at 915 North La Brea Avenue, in Hollywood, which at one time hosted production of game shows "Tic Tac Dough" and "The Joker's Wild". KCOP was acquired by News Corporation in 2001 and its studios were integrated with those of Fox affiliate KTTV in 2003, leaving the La Brea facility vacant. Originally the studio was put up for sale, but in the end they were retooled for the production of "Hell's Kitchen". The dining room area was the location of the former KCOP news studios, and living quarters for the contestants were built behind the restaurant.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Before season three, the Hell's Kitchen facility was moved to Century Studios at 3322 La Cienega Place in Los Angeles. From seasons 4-18, Hell's Kitchen's venue has been located at 8660 Hayden Place in Culver City. According to Arthur Perkins, the soundstage is only open for audience members when taping is taking place. The studio sits on the former location of the famous RKO Forty Acres backlot, which was used in movies such as "Gone With The Wind" and television series such as "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Adventures of Superman". The studio building sits on the location of the military camp seen in the television series "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.".


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: The first 18 seasons were produced at those modified warehouses in Los Angeles which included the restaurant, dual kitchen facilities, and dormitories where the contestants resided while on the show. The nineteenth and twentieth seasons were filmed at the Caesars Entertainment Studios property near the Las Vegas Strip. Seasons 21 and 22 were shot back-to-back in Burbank, California, in what used to be an IKEA building.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: The series has drawn numerous online and editorial accusations of staging and dramatic license, mostly due to editing techniques of the producers, who splice together several hours of footage from a dinner service, in order to make certain contestants appear as poor performers, later justifying their elimination. This was most obvious when one episode featured clips showing Amanda "Tek" Moore, who was already eliminated, in the background, still cooking three episodes after her elimination.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: One of the most controversial accusations of staging on "Hell's Kitchen" relates to an incident with contestant Joseph Tinnelly from Season 6, who, during one elimination round, angrily confronted Ramsay, challenging him to fight, and was then escorted off the set. The incident drew immediate fire from critics as an overplayed and possibly faked scene, conducted to cause action and tension on the show in order to spark viewer interest.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: "Hell's Kitchen" has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Art Direction for Variety, Music or Nonfiction Programming category in 2007, 2008, and 2009. It has also been nominated for two Art Directors Guild Awards in the Television — Awards Show, Variety, Music or Non-Fiction Program category in 2007 and 2008, winning one in 2008. It has also been nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer Series.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: At the 2011 People's Choice Awards, "Hell's Kitchen" was nominated for Favorite Reality Show and Gordon Ramsay was nominated for Favorite TV Chef.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: At the 2014 Reality TV Awards ceremony, "Hell's Kitchen" won an award for best new cast. In 2015, "Hell's Kitchen" won awards for best overall show and guilty pleasure at the 2015 Reality TV Awards.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: Visual Entertainment (under license from ITV Studios) has released the first fourteen seasons of "Hell's Kitchen" on DVD in Region 1. Season 14 was released on March 15, 2016, and to the Blu-ray format for the first time.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: On September 11, 2008, Ubisoft released "" for the Wii, Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows, and iOS, which features the likeness of Ramsay, and the many important tasks shown in the U.S. version of the show.


title: Hell's Kitchen (American TV series)

text: On April 2, 2009, Ludia and Social2u released the official Facebook version of the "Hell's Kitchen" video game.


title: Hyena

text: Hyenas, or hyaenas (from Ancient Greek , ), are feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae . With only four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the Carnivora and one of the smallest in the class Mammalia. Despite their low diversity, hyenas are unique and vital components of most African ecosystems.


title: Hyena

text: Although phylogenetically closer to felines and viverrids, as part of suborder Feliformia, hyenas are behaviourally and morphologically similar to canids in several elements due to convergent evolution; both hyenas and canines are non-arboreal, cursorial hunters that catch prey with their teeth rather than claws. Both eat food quickly and may store it, and their calloused feet with large, blunt, nonretractable claws are adapted for running and making sharp turns. However, hyenas' grooming, scent marking, defecation habits, mating and parental behavior are consistent with the behavior of other feliforms.


title: Hyena

text: Hyenas feature prominently in the folklore and mythology of human cultures that live alongside them. Hyenas are commonly viewed as frightening and worthy of contempt. In some cultures, hyenas are thought to influence people's spirits, rob graves, and steal livestock and children. Other cultures associate them with witchcraft, using their body parts in traditional African medicine.


title: Hyena

text: Hyenas originated in the jungles of Miocene Eurasia 22 million years ago, when most early feliform species were still largely arboreal. The first ancestral hyenas were likely similar to the modern African civet; one of the earliest hyena species described, "Plioviverrops", was a lithe, civet-like animal that inhabited Eurasia 20–22 million years ago, and is identifiable as a hyaenid by the structure of the middle ear and dentition. The lineage of "Plioviverrops" prospered, and gave rise to descendants with longer legs and more pointed jaws, a direction similar to that taken by canids in North America.


title: Hyena

text: Hyenas then diversified into two distinct types: lightly built dog-like hyenas and robust bone-crushing hyenas. Although the dog-like hyenas thrived 15 million years ago (with one taxon having colonised North America), they became extinct after a change in climate, along with the arrival of canids into Eurasia. Of the dog-like hyena lineage, only the insectivorous aardwolf survived, while the bone-crushing hyenas (including the extant spotted, brown and striped hyenas) became the undisputed top scavengers of Eurasia and Africa.


title: Hyena

text: The descendants of "Plioviverrops" reached their peak 15 million years ago, with more than 30 species having been identified. Unlike most modern hyena species, which are specialised bone-crushers, these dog-like hyenas were nimble-bodied, wolfish animals; one species among them was "Ictitherium viverrinum", which was similar to a jackal. The dog-like hyenas were numerous; in some Miocene fossil sites, the remains of "Ictitherium" and other dog-like hyenas outnumber those of all other carnivores combined. The decline of the dog-like hyenas began 5–7 million years ago during a period of climate change, exacerbated by canids crossing the Bering land bridge to Eurasia. One species, "Chasmaporthetes ossifragus", managed to cross the land bridge into North America, being the only hyena to do so. "Chasmaporthetes" managed to survive for some time in North America by deviating from the endurance-running and bone-crushing niches monopolized by canids, and developing into a cheetah-like sprinter. Most of the dog-like hyenas had died off by 1.5 million years ago.


title: Hyena

text: By 10–14 million years ago, the hyena family had split into two distinct groups: dog-like hyenas and bone-crushing hyenas. The arrival of the ancestral bone-crushing hyenas coincided with the decline of the similarly built family Percrocutidae. The bone-crushing hyenas survived the changes in climate and the arrival of canids, which wiped out the dog-like hyenas, though they never crossed into North America, as their niche there had already been taken by the dog subfamily Borophaginae. By 5 million years ago, the bone-crushing hyenas had become the dominant scavengers of Eurasia, primarily feeding on large herbivore carcasses felled by sabre-toothed cats. One genus, "Pachycrocuta", was a 200 kg (440 lb) mega-scavenger that could splinter the bones of elephants. With the decline of large herbivores by the late ice age, "Pachycrocuta" was replaced by the smaller "Crocuta".


title: Hyena

text: The four extant species are the striped hyena ("Hyaena hyaena"), the brown hyena ("Parahyaena brunnea"), the spotted hyena ("Crocuta crocuta"), and the aardwolf ("Proteles cristata").


title: Hyena

text: The aardwolf can trace its lineage directly back to "Plioviverrops" 15 million years ago, and is the only survivor of the dog-like hyena lineage. Its success is partly attributed to its insectivorous diet, for which it faced no competition from canids crossing from North America. It is likely that its unrivaled ability to digest the terpene excretions from soldier termites is a modification of the strong digestive system its ancestors used to consume fetid carrion.


title: Hyena

text: The striped hyena may have evolved from "Hyaenictitherium namaquensis" of Pliocene Africa. Striped hyena fossils are common in Africa, with records going back as far as the Villafranchian. As fossil striped hyenas are absent from the Mediterranean region, it is likely that the species is a relatively late invader to Eurasia, having likely spread outside Africa only after the extinction of spotted hyenas in Asia at the end of the Ice Age. The striped hyena occurred for some time in Europe during the Pleistocene, having been particularly widespread in France and Germany. It also occurred in Montmaurin, Hollabrunn in Austria, the Furninha Cave in Portugal and the Genista Caves in Gibraltar. The European form was similar in appearance to modern populations, but was larger, being comparable in size to the brown hyena.


title: Hyena

text: The spotted hyena ("Crocuta crocuta") diverged from the striped and brown hyena 10 million years ago. Its direct ancestor was the Indian "Crocuta sivalensis", which lived during the Villafranchian. Ancestral spotted hyenas probably developed social behaviours in response to increased pressure from rivals on carcasses, thus forcing them to operate in teams. Spotted hyenas evolved sharp carnassials behind their crushing premolars, therefore they did not need to wait for their prey to die, and thus became pack hunters as well as scavengers. They began forming increasingly larger territories, necessitated by the fact that their prey was often migratory, and long chases in a small territory would have caused them to encroach into another clan's turf. Spotted hyenas spread from their original homeland during the Middle Pleistocene, and quickly colonised a very wide area from Europe, to southern Africa and China. With the decline of grasslands 12,500 years ago, Europe experienced a massive loss of lowland habitats favoured by spotted hyenas, and a corresponding increase in mixed woodlands. Spotted hyenas, under these circumstances, would have been outcompeted by wolves and humans, who were as much at home in forests as in open lands—and in highlands as in lowlands. Spotted hyena populations began to shrink after roughly 20,000 years ago, completely disappearing from Western Europe between 11 and 14 thousand years ago, and earlier in some areas.


title: Hyena

text: The list follows McKenna and Bell's "Classification of Mammals" for prehistoric genera (1997) and Wozencraft (2005) in Wilson and Reeders "Mammal Species of the World" for extant genera. The percrocutids are, in contrast to McKenna and Bell's classification, not included as a subfamily into the Hyaenidae, but as the separate family Percrocutidae (though they are generally grouped as sister-taxa to hyenas). Furthermore, the living brown hyena and its closest extinct relatives are not included in the genus "Pachycrocuta", but in the genus "Parahyaena". The Protelinae (aardwolves) are not treated as a separate subfamily, but included in the Hyaeninae.


title: Hyena

text: The following cladogram illustrates the phylogenetic relationships between extant and extinct hyaenids based on the morphological analysis by Werdelin & Solounias (1991), as updated by Turner et al. (2008).


title: Hyena

text: A more recent molecular analysis agrees on the phylogenetic relationship between the four extant hyaenidae species (Koepfli "et al", 2006).