Adele concluded her Munich shows last weekend by telling fans: ‘I will not see you for an incredibly long time.’
The star added: ‘I just need a rest. I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it now.’ And it can be revealed that the superstar singer is as good as her word, and then some.
For I hear she turned down a potential $200 million payday — the biggest of her career — to extend her tour. The most lucrative part of the deal was a nine-figure sum for a long residency in a casino in Macau, China.
It would have been similar to her Weekends With Adele gigs at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. Those started in November 2022 and will finish on November 23rd this year, by which time the singer will have played 100 gigs — reputedly for £500,000 a show. But I am told the Macau gigs would have been ‘far better paid’.
The singer, whose hits include Rolling In The Deep and Hello, was also offered a stadium tour of Europe, Asia and South America.
Adele turned down a potential $200 million payday — the biggest of her career — to extend her tour. (Adele performs onstage in Munich, Germany)
For much of the past year the 36-year-old superstar has been shuttling from her huge new home in Beverly Hills to Vegas by private jet. (Adele pictured with her fiance Rich Paul in Los Angeles, California)
A source said: ‘There have been a lot of offers but she has turned them all down because she wants to be home with her kid. The Chinese deal put millions of dollars on the table, but she did not want to do it in the end. She’s put her kid and boyfriend — and herself — first.’
For much of the past year the 36-year-old superstar, rumoured to be worth £165 million, has been shuttling from her huge new home in Beverly Hills to Vegas by private jet, returning to spend the week with sports agent Rich Paul — now her fiance — and son Angelo, who’ll be 12 next month.
The ten Munich shows, which she’s just finished, were highly lucrative, with Adele getting £5 million per performance (and that’s not counting her cut of the merchandise).
In a radio interview in July, she revealed she wanted to focus on family and ‘other creative things’ after her residencies ended. ‘I don’t have any plans for new music at all,’ she said. ‘I want a big break after this and I think I want to do other creative things, just for a little while.’
It’s understood she’s planning to relocate to the UK, where she has a luxury apartment in central London, later this year, as she’d prefer to raise Angelo in London.
DJ Sherlock gets the party started
Benedict Cumberbatch is a versatile actor who has shown he can stretch from Sherlock to Dr Strange. But he played a very different role on Monday night — DJ-ing a set at an Aston Martin party in Venice, where the crowd included George Clooney, Michael Douglas, Kevin Costner and Adrien Brody.
I’m told he looked ‘sweaty and elated’ after finishing.
To be fair, this year’s festival has taken place amid a brutal heatwave. There have been lots of celebrities, er, ‘glowing’ their way around the parties, especially the ones held in historic palazzos with no air-con.
It’s not the only professional pivot for Cumberbatch, who was in Venice with wife Sophie. He is also an ordained celebrant, and officiated at Rob Rinder’s Ibiza wedding in 2013. He and Judge Rinder were pals at the University of Manchester, back in the day.
All the fun of the festival…
- Those who flew into Venice on Apple’s shilling did so in style, with private jets and the Cipriani block-booked for three days for Brad Pitt, George Clooney and co. So spare a thought for those attending with Amazon. The company is notoriously penny-pinching and has a policy that everyone — even the big cheeses — have to fly economy.
- Never mind a film’s quality, clock the ovation. It seems that five minutes is the point at which polite appreciation becomes a genuine salute. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Tim Burton’s disappointing sequel)…three minutes. Wolfs (Pitt and Clooney, having more fun than the audience)…five minutes. Queer (Daniel Craig, pictured with Drew Starkey, banishing the spectre of Bond, and how)…nine minutes. The Brutalist (three-and-a-half hours about a Hungarian architect)…13 minutes.
- Meanwhile, at Telluride Film Festival the hot ticket was for Conclave, an adaptation of Robert Harris’s thriller about choosing a Pope, starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci. There’s already Oscar heat. It gets its British premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 10.
Greta’s girl Leila is lighting up the screen
Leila George, 32, (pictured) plays the younger version of Cate Blanchett’s character in Alfonso Cuaron’s TV series Disclaimer. (Leila George on the red carpet for Disclaimer)
Leila George, daughter of Greta Scacchi, says that her premiere at the Venice Film Festival last week was ‘a dream’ — and she certainly brought glamour to the red carpet in a strapless black Alessandra Rich dress with plunging neckline, set off by a classic Chopard diamond necklace (pictured, left).
Ms George, 32, plays the younger version of Cate Blanchett’s character in Alfonso Cuaron’s TV series Disclaimer, which premieres on Apple TV+ next month.
She is breathtakingly lovely in the series, but modestly gives all the credit for that to Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, known as Chivo.
‘It’s kind of what makes watching really intimate scenes in a theatre with other people manageable, because you’re like: ‘Oh my gosh, we look sooooo good!’ she joked. ‘I’m the kind of person that’ll stand in front of a mirror and pinpoint everything that’s wrong with me,’ she admitted.
‘And I watch those scenes and I just want Chivo to light everything — it’s magical.
‘You’re not thinking: ‘Oh God, everyone is looking at me doing this stuff!’ You’re like: ‘How does he make me look like that?’ It’s just amazing.’
Nicole Kidman clearly cares nothing for the spectre of Jaws. While making her new Netflix show The Perfect Couple, in Cape Cod, the Aussie actress ignored shark warnings in order to swim.
‘I was the only one who went swimming with the big signs that said ‘sharks’ — which I totally ignored,’ she said. ‘One person congratulated me when I came out of the water.’
Kidman (below, with co-star Liev Schreiber) added: ‘There was a photo of a huge great white with its jaws open with [the words] ‘Be Careful’ and I just ignored it and went in.’
Jack should be James Bond Jr
Lowden is 34 …and Sean Connery was 32 when he took on the role of 007 for the first time in Dr No. (Jack Lowden is seen backstage during the 2023 BAFTA Television Awards)
Gary Oldman, the 66-yearold star of Apple TV+ hit show Slow Horses, thinks that his co-star Jack Lowden is too young to play James Bond.
‘They should film a prequel, with Jack playing a younger version of 007, perhaps coming up through the ranks in the Royal Navy, or something like that,’ he said. ‘I think he’s a little young [to play the mature James Bond] at the minute.’
For the record, Lowden is 34 …and Sean Connery was 32 when he took on the role of 007 for the first time in Dr No.
Jude lays down the law (with help from a big ‘tash)
Jude Law (pictured) gives a brilliant performance as a washed-up FBI agent fighting white supremacists in The Order
He might not thank you for saying it, but Jude Law has entered his ‘dad-throb’ era.
The actor gives a brilliant performance as a washed-up FBI agent fighting white supremacists in The Order, which premiered in Venice to a rapturous audience response (and a seven-minute ovation).
Law, 51, who plays agent Terry Husk, said: ‘There was a sort of lived-in quality to him that I enjoyed.
‘There was a lot of discussion about facial hair, but every agent I interviewed had a moustache, so it was just a given that I had to grow one.’
Co-star Nicholas Hoult plays Bob Mathews, a real-life American neo-Nazi who led a white supremacist group in 1983. Hoult revealed that director Justin Kurzel gave each actor a ‘manifesto’ for their character, including tasks for them to complete.
‘I just found out on the boat here – one of Jude’s tasks was to follow me for a day!’ he said. ‘He was trailing me for a day when I landed in Calgary.’
A fly on the wall look at John and Yoko’s flat
Using old photographs, Macdonald recreated the New York apartment as fully as he could, with the aid of his wife, set decorator Tatiana Macdonald. (John Lennon and Yoko Ono pictured in New York)
John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved from a mansion in Surrey to a two-room apartment in New York’s West Village after he left The Beatles – and this little-examined period of political activism and personal discovery is uncannily evoked in the documentary One To One: John & Yoko.
Made by Scottish director Kevin Macdonald, with the assistance of the Lennon estate, it features footage from Lennon’s only full-length post-Beatles concert, in 1972, and home movies including footage of Lennon with Yoko’s daughter Kyoko.
It also includes conversations gleaned from hours of telephone calls as Yoko, fearful of bugging after Watergate, decided that the pair should tape everything.
There is a sly running joke in which staff working for Yoko make desperate attempts to procure sufficient flies for an art installation she is putting together.
John is also heard fooling manager Allen Klein into believing that Ringo Starr is Jewish, and laughing heartily at his joke afterwards.
Using old photographs, Macdonald recreated the New York apartment as fully as he could, with the aid of his wife, set decorator Tatiana Macdonald.
It turns out that the quilt on the couple’s bed still exists but had to be re-made, as the original was in a frail state; and dupes of their Peanuts/Snoopy bedding were hunted down on vintage and second-hand sites. ‘I loved the thought that John Lennon slept on a Peanuts pillowcase,’ Macdonald said.
Lennon and Yoko are seen navigating the tumult of the anti-Vietnam war movements, with Nixon campaigning for a second term and the shooting of Alabama governor George Wallace. Lennon says on stage: ‘OK, so flower power didn’t work. So what? We start again.’
The singer also muses on parenthood, and his own parents, but does not mention Julian – his son with first wife Cynthia – in the documentary.
Sean, his son with Yoko, is also not mentioned – because he was born outside the scope of the documentary. But he remastered the audio for the film.
