starstudded

A few hours after their season-ending defeat in the NFC championship game last January, the Rams boarded a plane for their flight home from Seattle.

Quarterback Matthew Stafford was seated a row in front of veteran receiver Davante Adams, who once again had fallen just short of finally reaching the Super Bowl.

“He’s turning around, he’s looking at me, like, ‘I’m sorry, man, I wanted that for you so bad,’” Adams recalled. “Not for him, but he wanted it for me.”

Adams, 33, is expected to get another shot at playing on the NFL’s biggest stage.

The star-studded Rams are favored to not only play in but win Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium.

Since the Green Bay Packers selected him out of Fresno State in the second round of the 2014 draft, Adams has played in and lost five NFC championship games, including last season’s 31-27 defeat by the eventual Super Bowl-champion Seahawks.

Adams was visibly upset in the locker room — “a mess” he said — so he is aiming for a happier result if the Rams reach the conference championship game for the fourth time under coach Sean McVay.

Last season, his first with the Rams, Adams led the NFL with 14 touchdowns catches.

And that was after the three-time All-Pro got no training-camp reps with Stafford, who sat out because of a back issue.

Stafford, an 18th-year pro, and Adams struggled to consistently connect on the field through the first six games. But that changed when the Rams traveled to London to play the Jacksonville Jaguars.

McVay described what happened at Wembley Stadium as “a turning point” for Stafford and Adams.

Rams wide receiver Davante Adams jogs with the ball during training camp at Loyola Marymount on July 26.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In the 35-7 rout, Adams caught three touchdown passes, all from two yards or closer.

“They really hit their stride,” McVay said.

Adams was sidelined the next game and the final two games of the regular season because of a hamstring injury. He returned for the playoffs and made several huge plays, including a spectacular sideline catch in a divisional-round victory over the Chicago Bears in Chicago.

Last spring, with the Philadelphia Eagles shopping wide receiver A.J. Brown, McVay acknowledged that Adams’ name had come up in trade talks.

“It’s just the way that this business goes,” Adams said at the outset of training camp. “You gotta evaluate, you gotta look at certain things, and ultimately I’m still a Ram and I’m here and I’m happy to be here.”

Stafford and Adams had scheduled rest days during camp but they still got plenty of reps together as the Rams prepared for next month’s opener against the San Francisco 49ers in Australia.

“We’re getting a whole different start than what we did last year,” Adams said, adding, “Any time you can have these grinding days where you come out here, play ball and lock in on the details, that’ll help you be in a much better position when it’s time to really go.”

During the offseason, the Rams added All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie, cornerback Jaylen Watson and defensive end Myles Garrett, the reigning NFL defensive player of the year.

McDuffie and Watson have helped Adams and fellow star receiver Puka Nacua hone their skills.

“It’s the epitome of iron sharpens iron,” Adams said when asked about McDuffie.

For both.

Adams is the best route runner in the NFL, McDuffie said.

“The more we can keep ping-ponging back and forth against each other, the more we can keep rising our standard,“ McDuffie said. “It’s going to be a great year for both of us, so I enjoy it a lot.”

Despite being the oldest wide receiver on the roster — “This is dog years out here,” he said, laughing — Adams is learning from and being pushed by his younger teammates.

“I am the old man and I feel young because I can still go out there and do young-man stuff,” he said. “But then my body don’t necessarily feel the same way. … If I can continue to play at a high level, I’ll deal with the other stuff, whether it’s talking about me being old or a little bit of extra pain.

“It’s just a little extra work you have to do to come out of it.”

Davante Adams catches a pass at Rams training camp on July 26.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Stafford and Adams are aiming for a celebratory postgame exchange if the Rams once again reach the NFC championship.

Of his interaction with Adams on the plane after their loss to the Seahawks, Stafford noted that Adams had been a part of good teams that fell short of playing in the Super Bowl.

“As much as I wanted to go play in that game, and a lot of other guys did too, I wanted it more for other guys that haven’t either gotten the opportunity to be there or win it,” Stafford said, adding, “[It was] on my heart at the moment and I decided to tell him how I was feeling.”

Adams appreciated the sentiment from Stafford and all of his teammates.

“For them to feel that way about me and to care that much to want to get me a [Super] Bowl before I get out of here, it says a lot about who they are,” he said, “and a little bit about who I am.”

IT was billed as the showbiz wedding of the year. As Elton John, Charli XCX and Hollywood royalty descended on Sicily to watch Callum Turner marry Dua Lipa in a £1.5million extravaganza, one notable guest was nowhere to be seen.

Instead of raising a glass with his son, Callum’s father Laurence Coles was more than 2,000 miles away at an altogether different event in North London. Now, I can reveal the shocking reason why the actor’s dad missed the celebrity ceremony – and the complicated family history that makes his absence all the more surprising.

Two thousand miles away in North London was Laurence Coles – known to friends as ‘Larry’, and to Callum Turner, ‘Dad’.

The actor has previously described his relationship with Laurence as “loose” – hardly surprising given the pair spent much of Callum’s childhood living at opposite sides of the world.

However Larry’s recent return to the UK has allowed him to build a relationship with Callum – with the family spending time together and mingling on holidays.

Yet, in an unexpected turn, I am told that Laurence, who lives in Hastings, East Sussex, travelled to London for a wedding – albeit not his son’s.

Callum’s parents Larry and Rosemary Turner were unmarried and living at separate addresses when he was born in February 1990.

Callum was given his mother’s name, Turner, and was brought up by Rosemary in a council flat on an estate in Chelsea, West London.

Meanwhile, Larry was beginning an entirely different life on the other side of the world.

The former Hammersmith plasterer swapped London’s building sites for Sydney, where he also retrained as a psychotherapist, settled down and started a second family – leaving Callum growing up almost 10,000 miles away.

Fast-forward three decades and things looked very different.

Despite the fractured start to their relationship, father and son appear to have grown much closer in recent years.

But in a surprising twist to their father-son relationship, Larry not only missed his son’s wedding – he was attending a completely different one instead.

Instead, he was a guest of Jamie Rae Keeble – the daughter of Spandau Ballet drummer John Keeble – as she tied the knot in the capital on the same day as Dua and Callum.

The contrast could hardly have been starker. While Callum’s guests were arriving at a secluded Sicilian estate by chauffeured cars for what insiders dubbed the “showbiz wedding of the year”, Laurence was celebrating another couple’s big day back in the capital.

The revelation comes despite signs that father and son had grown closer in recent years

Last Christmas, Callum was pictured enjoying a festive meal with Laurence, fiancée Dua and his younger half-siblings Louis and Clemmie after Larry returned to Britain following almost three decades in Australia.

Clemmie has become particularly close to the couple, joining Dua on girls’ trips to Ibiza.

She also has a sweet snap of her and Callum on her Instagram from the GALA Festival in South London in 2019.

A source said: “Laurence and Callum have been estranged over the years but it was nonetheless strange that he was at a wedding on the same day his son got married.

“Laurence kept a low profile but some people questioned the fact that he was at a wedding on the same day his son was marrying Dua.”

Growing up, Callum’s mum Rosemary worked as a promoter for the clubs in SW3 – brushing shoulders with models and musicians on the fashionable King’s Road in London’s Chelsea.

Rosemary is now the co-founder of Counselling For Life and is described as an “experienced psychotherapist” on LinkedIn.

The actor previously told the Evening Standard: “The thing I always found interesting in my childhood was, yeah, I was growing up on an estate, single mum, working-class, but then I also had all these colourful characters around.

“It wasn’t about navigating two worlds,” he said. “There were three, four, five more.”

However Callum, who starred in Marc Webb’s 2017 film The Only Living Boy in New York, also said the father-son relationship was “alien” to him.

“I didn’t understand the relationship between the son and the father,” he said in 2019.

“It was completely alien to me.”

Larry, now 66 and once again single, lives in a period flat in a smart garden square in fashionable Hastings on the east Sussex coast, from where he practices his therapy.

Friends locally have said they know Larry is now in regular contact with his son, and is reportedly “unashamedly proud of Callum.”

That makes his absence from one of the biggest days of the actor’s life all the more surprising.

Though his father wasn’t in attendance, Callum’s half-siblings Louis and Clemmie attended the spectacular Sicilian wedding,

Beyond family, their three-day Sicily extravaganza was every bit the A-list affair insiders had promised.

Around 200 guests descended on the 18th-century Villa Valguarnera, with Joe Alwyn, Mark Ronson, Grace Gummer, George Daniel, Elton John and Charli XCX among those celebrating.

Guests were reportedly asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, while metal barriers surrounded the historic estate to keep fans and photographers at bay.

The property, which featured in the opening credits of HBO drama The White Lotus 2, is widely considered one of the most historically and culturally significant villas in Sicily.

It was once a Mafia hideout but has since been taken on by 76-year-old Italian author and translator Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca, the Princess of Valguarnera, who still lives in the estate.

One Kiss hitmaker Dua, who has an estimated net worth of £150million, and Callum hired the venue for a reported £86,000.

Dua stunned in a bespoke Chanel haute couture gown featuring a seven-foot train, handcrafted using 25,000 feathers and almost half a million beads, while Callum opted for a custom Louis Vuitton suit.

Days earlier the pair had made things official during a private legal ceremony at London’s Old Marylebone Town Hall before jetting to Sicily for the lavish celebration.

Dua was introduced to Callum in 2023 while having dinner at The River Cafe in London with her dad and manager Dukagjin Lipa.

They were introduced by the restaurant’s co-founder, Ruth Rogers, after having crossed paths many times before.

The Sun revealed that the pair officially started dating in 2024 and confirmed their engagement in British Vogue last summer.

Dua told the fashion bible: “This decision to grow old together, to see a life and just, I don’t know, be best friends forever – it’s a really special feeling.”

It was a big night for the cast of Clarkson’s Farm as they won big at the TRIC Awards, beating competition from Strictly Come Dancing and I’m A Celeb

The red carpet at the TRIC Awards was absolutely awash with chatter as TV and radio stars descended on London’s Grosvenor House hotel. While the trophies were a huge focus, it was clear the conversation was just as lively off-stage as it was on it.

With the World Cup in full swing, football fever had clearly followed the celebrities inside, with plenty of excitement ahead of England’s big match against Ghana.

Among those soaking up the atmosphere was Coronation Street star Gareth Pierce, who couldn’t resist teasing upcoming drama on the cobbles.

He hinted that things are about to take a very dark turn for Todd Grimshaw as he discovers the truth about Theo’s killer and promised fans that the storyline will “change everything”.

Elsewhere on the carpet, TRIC President Dan Walker was in high spirits as he reflected on both the awards and the wider political mood of the moment.

Speaking candidly, he said: “I think Sir Keir Starmer is a decent man, I’ve interviewed him over the years, but that doesn’t automatically make you a brilliant prime minister. It’s a really hard job.”

The comment sparked plenty of conversation among guests, many of whom admitted the current political climate is never far from industry talk.

Actress Kellie Shirley also weighed in on the day’s sporting focus, revealing that England fever has taken over at home. “It’s such an exciting time,” she said. “Everyone’s talking about the game, and we’ll definitely all be watching together. You can’t escape it at the moment – the World Cup is everywhere!”

The mix of sport, politics and soap drama set the tone for a typically lively TRIC atmosphere, but the biggest focus remained on the winners: LadBaby taking Content Creator (sponsored by Rayo), The Celebrity Traitors winning Game Show of the Year, and Clare Balding crowned Sports Presenter of the Year.

In entertainment, Clarkson’s Farm continued its winning momentum, taking top honours beating I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, Strictly Come Dancing and Michael McIntyre’s Big Show in a category packed with long-running audience favourites.

Drama proved equally competitive, with Adolescence emerging as one of the key winners after trumping Call the Midwife, Death in Paradise and Slow Horses, highlighting another strong year for British scripted television.

Daytime programming also saw familiar names rewarded, with A Place in the Sun being recognised for its enduring appeal.

Factual honours went to 24 Hours in Police Custody, while food programming show Come Dine with Me took the gong.

The combination of sporting fever, political chat, soap spoilers and star-studded celebration ensured another unpredictable TRIC atmosphere – proving once again that when Britain’s broadcasters come together, the conversation off-stage is every bit as compelling as the awards themselves.

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The evening blended tennis, ​music and tributes to celebrate his two-decade journey on the professional tour.

Gael Monfils brought ‌the party to Roland Garros on Thursday, teaming up with his ⁠wife Elina Svitolina ⁠to win a lively, star-studded exhibition match as he prepared for his final appearance at his home Grand Slam.

The popular Frenchman took ⁠centre stage on Court Philippe-Chatrier for “Gael & Friends”, an evening that blended tennis, music and tributes to celebrate his two-decade journey on the professional tour.

The former ⁠world number six was joined by an array of leading players, including Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka also featured, alongside Maria Sakkari and rising American talent Iva Jovic, while his former Davis ‌Cup teammates Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet added a nostalgic touch to the occasion.

Monfils and Svitolina capped the night by winning the exhibition event, delighting the Paris crowd in an event filled with laughter, trick shots and playful exchanges replacing the usual tension of a competition.

Monfils won 13 ATP titles and enjoyed memorable runs in Paris, including a semifinal appearance in ⁠2008. He helped France to Davis Cup finals in ⁠2010 and 2014.

While a Grand Slam title eluded him, his impact extended far beyond results and his on-court charisma made him a major drawcard wherever he played.

“Thanks to you all for ⁠everything you’ve given me over the years,” the 39-year-old showman said after the exhibition match.

“It’s been a dream of ⁠my life. I’ve always given my absolute most. ⁠I was never quite good enough to win a Grand Slam. But maybe I won something more important than that — a tennis career I’m proud of.”

Svitolina, who had earlier called her husband “a magician” ‌in a note written to their daughter, was reduced to tears as Monfils lingered on court, soaking up one final ovation.

Monfils will play 25-year-old compatriot ‌Hugo ‌Gaston in the first round at Roland Garros next week, his 19th appearance in the main draw at the French Open.

A Death in Paradise star has given fans a major career update.

A Death in Paradise favourite is teaming up with a Strictly star for a sinister mystery drama.

Ralf Little joined BBC‘s Death in Paradise in January 2020 as the anxious DI Neville Parker, whose romantic life was rather unlucky.

However, when he bid farewell in 2024, Neville departed hand-in-hand with DS Florence Cassell (Josephine Jobert), sailing towards a happy ending.

Two years following his exit, Little is preparing to feature in Channel 4‘s forthcoming psychological thriller, Hunting Alice Bell, described as a “whodunnit with shades of family drama and social satire”.

Based on its official synopsis, the six-episode drama promises to be considerably darker than what Death in Paradise viewers have come to expect from Little.

Hunting Alice Bell centres on the eponymous character, a former nurse and the romantic partner and accomplice of a “notorious anesthetist serial killer”.

She now resides in the UK under a fresh identity, but when Fran Da Silva is accused online of being Alice Bell, “her happy family life implodes into a wave of mob hate”.

The synopsis adds: “Then she discovers she’s not the only woman to suffer this fate. Fran and the other accused women band together to fight back and clear their names.

“But as they battle to prove their innocence, what if one of the group is lying – and is the real Alice Bell?”

Few details are known about Graham Hunter, the character Little will play, with additional information about his involvement in the Channel 4 series remaining under wraps.

He’ll be accompanied by Nightsleeper’s Alexandra Roach as Fran, Sherlock and Strictly Come Dancing favourite Amanda Abbington as Julie, Mobland’s Emily Barber as Vanessa, and Shaun of the Dead legend Simon Pegg as Dr Jason Nash.

Hunting Alice Bell, which will explore the “devastating effects” of rumours, is scheduled to broadcast later this year, though no specific release date has been announced.

Co-creator David Baddiel remarked, “Technology has created a whole new spin on the idea of mistaken identity.

“We are told that in the present culture, anyone can be who they want to be. But that also means that anyone can have who they are taken away from them: the hive mind can decide who you are.

“This happens to the five women in Hunting Alice Bell: in a world where identity is very fluid, they have lost control of theirs.”

Death in Paradise is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.