Latest news with #RobertDaley
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Olympic Diver Tom Daley's Husband Dustin Lance Black Helped Him Recover from His Father's Death (Exclusive)
NEED TO KNOW The new Tom Daley documentary 1.6 Seconds premiered globally on Max and on in the U.S. on June 1, 2025 The film explores the life of the Olympian diver, one of Britain's most-celebrated athletes, in and out of the pool 1.6 Seconds highlights Daley's close relationship with his late father, Robert Daley, and how he learned to navigate life without his biggest supporter Tom Daley, 31, faced unimaginable loss when his father and biggest supporter, Robert Daley, passed away at age 40 after the Olympic diver had just turned 17 years old. In the wake of that grief, diving — once a passion they shared — became a lonely and isolating experience. For years, the five-time Olympian felt he had to put on a 'brave face' and look like everything was okay, when internally he felt the opposite. Advertisement However, meeting his soon-to-be husband, Dustin Lance Black, in 2013 changed everything. It taught him that vulnerability doesn't equate to weakness and that diving shouldn't be the only thing that defines him. Sam Riley/WBD Tom Daley for his documentary, '1.6 Seconds' Tom Daley for his documentary, '1.6 Seconds' 'I think it was realizing that once you meet your person, you kind of have to have to be able to be vulnerable and share your thoughts and feelings,' Daley tells PEOPLE exclusively. After losing his father in May 2011 to brain cancer, the diver felt alone in his experience. Not knowing who to confide in, Daley unconsciously went into 'autopilot.' 'I don't know what I was thinking but I went to training the next day, I went to the national championships 10 days later,' he reveals in his new documentary 1.6 Seconds. 'I just kept going because I didn't know anything else. I didn't have anything or anyone else. I was alone.' Advertisement Daley coped by suppressing his emotions, pushing aside his grief to focus entirely on diving. He immersed himself in the sport, using its structure and intensity as a way to avoid the pain he wasn't ready to confront. 'I think my way of doing it was compartmentalizing everything and kind of like shoving it to one side without actually thinking about it properly,' Daley says. 'So for me, that was something that I found to be a struggle, but once I got into the swing of it and was able to actually start opening up and talking about things, learning that it's okay to struggle and that you're not a burden when you offload those struggles onto other people.' Charlotte Garner Tom Daley for his documentary '1.6 Seconds' Tom Daley for his documentary '1.6 Seconds' Shortly after winning his first medal at the London 2012 Olympics, Daley met Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black at a dinner party in 2013. Advertisement That same year, Daley publicly revealed that he was bisexual in a YouTube video. The pair later got married in 2017 at Bovey Castle in Devon, not far from Daley's hometown of Plymouth. He says with Black as his 'sounding board,' he felt grounded and safe to express himself once more. 'I was realizing that there was so much of my life that I had shut down just to be able to cope, that it was really special to have somebody that could bring out that side of you,' he tells PEOPLE. Unfortunately, the 2016 Rio Olympics marked what Daley labeled an 'all-time low' in his diving career. Going in expecting a gold medal, he instead came away with bronze in the men's synchronized 10m platform event. Advertisement Overwhelmed by the thought that his hard work might never lead to standing at the top of the podium, Daley was on the brink of tears. Black helped him see beyond the disappointment and reconnect with the bigger picture. 'He said to me: 'Your story doesn't end here. This isn't over for you. Maybe you weren't meant to win an Olympic gold medal here in Rio because your future kid was meant to see you win an Olympic gold medal,' ' Daley recalls in the doc. Since then, Daley and Black have built a family together, welcoming two sons via surrogate — Robbie in 2018 and Phoenix in 2023. Robbie was named in honor of Daley's late father. Advertisement After another four years of training, Daley and his partner Matty Lee won gold in the men's synchronized 10m platform diving event at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He also won a bronze in the individual 10m platform. Daley then took silver in the men's synchronized 10-meter platform at the 2024 Paris Olympics, with his husband and sons proudly cheering from the stands. 'He fell in love with a sport that had both beauty and athleticism. A sport where he could practice his perfectionism,' Black says in the documentary. 'A sport that takes place in 1.6 seconds and in that time, a myriad of things have to happen right.' Advertisement Feeling content and proud of his diving career — he competed in a total of five Olympic games and won one gold, one silver and three bronze medals — Daley retired in 2024 to focus on being a husband and father. 'Once you find that person, it really does help shift the way that you can deal with everything,' Daley tells PEOPLE. 1.6 Seconds is now streaming on Max globally and on in the U.S. Read the original article on People
Daily Mail
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Tom Daley shares the heartbreaking final moments with his dad as he opens up about losing his 'best friend' to brain tumour in emotional new film
Tom Daley has opened up about the final time he squeezed his father's hand before his 'cheerleader, best friend and mentor' died of a brain tumour in 2011. The Olympic diver speaks of his heartache in Warner Bros. Discovery's new feature documentary, 'Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds', which is released on Sunday. Daley shot to prominence when, aged 14, he became Great Britain's second youngest male Olympian at Beijing 2008. The diver would go on to win five medals — including gold at Tokyo 2020 — and retired after last summer's Paris Games where he won silver. The 90-minute feature takes you back to the start of the 31-year-old's career and navigates through the highs and lows of his life inside and outside of the pool. For Daley, the early part of his career was overshadowed by his father's poor health and then death. Robert Daley was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2006 but continued to follow his son's career around the world despite his illness. Doctors initially operated and removed the majority of it, but it began to grow back over time. Tom Daley tells the story of his career in a new documentary which is released on Sunday 'I remember walking into the hospital and then seeing him in the hospital bed with bandages wrapped around his head,' Daley recalls in the documentary. 'That was when I found out that he had just had a brain tumour the size of a grapefruit removed. 'At the time I wasn't told that it was terminal, so just I always assumed, and had the hopeful optimism that he was going to recover, because you think of your parents as invincible. You think of your parents as the people that are going to be there for you through everything, or at least until you become an adult.' And it was in February 2011, when Daley was in Mexico preparing for the London Games, when his world fell apart. 'My mum was like, "Hey, Tom. Just wanted to speak to you and let you know that you're going to be coming home this afternoon. Your dad's not very well. He's currently in the living room, and he's been put on end of life care". 'When I left, he wasn't doing great, but he was fine, like my dad was gonna get better. He had to get better. How could I keep going? How could I go to the next Olympics? How could I do what I do every day without him? Daley rushed back to their home in Plymouth, where Robert had been moved into a downstairs room, to spend a final few months with his dad before he passed away. 'Whenever I wasn't training, or whenever I wasn't at school, I was sat right next to him working on my driving theory test,' Daley said. The diver won his first medal at London 2012 but was on 'autopilot' after his father's death 'That was the one thing that we could still do together.' 'When I had my 17th birthday on May 21 he wanted to come to the window, but he couldn't really walk, but he tried to get to the window anyway. I did my first driving lesson. Came back, and it was on May 27 that he passed away. 'I kept squeezing his hand, and he would squeeze back. And then I remember the last time that he squeezed my hand and then he didn't squeeze back anymore. 'I didn't just lose my dad because he was much more, he was my biggest cheerleader, my best friend, mentor. I mean, our whole life came to a standstill.' Just a year later, Daley won his first medal at London 2012 — bronze in the 10m platform — but he admits that he was operating on 'autopilot', such was his grief. 'There's periods of time where I just have no recollection of what happened, and I felt like I just went into some kind of autopilot of just doing what I thought was right at the time and what other people wanted for me, or what other people expected me to be, or what other people expected me to act like,' he said. 'I kind of shut down. I don't know what I was thinking, but I went to training the next day. I went to the National Championships 10 days later. I just kept going because I didn't know anything else. 'I didn't have anything or have anyone else. I was alone. I felt like I had to put on a brave face, like I always have to, because I always have to keep this front that everything was going to be ok and it wasn't, but I didn't know how to deal with that.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
As Black Mirror returns for series 7, here's what we're excited about
Black Mirror is back for a brand new season that is guaranteed to terrify as much as it amazes viewers with its frank and scarily believable prediction for the future. The Netflix series has long been a hit for the streaming platform, growing in popularity and prestige the longer it runs. Its increased success means the show has also been able to do more risky and intriguing things, and that's what makes it so exciting when new episodes come along. Season 7 is no exception to this, and there are a number of things that viewers can be excited about when Charlie Brooker's dystopian series returns on Thursday, 10 April. One of the most beloved Black Mirror episodes of all time is USS Callister, the season 4 episode that followed the exploits of Robert Daley (Jesse Plemons) the apparent captain of the titular spaceship in a pseudo Star Trek parody. Only all is not as it seems because Daley is actually a tech genius who is using a game to torture clones of people he hates in real life — and it's up to Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) and the crew to defeat him. Black Mirror has always been an anthology series, and there has never been a moment where the show has deliberately returned to an episode's storyline. But fans have been calling for a follow-up to the USS Callister episode ever since it came out and Brooker was happy to oblige. It's exciting to think of the possibilities that are in store for Nanette and her crew since they were able to free themselves from Robert Daley's grasp. The universe seemed infinite to them, and so exploring the different challenges they could face is an exciting prospect. The USS Callister sequel isn't the only time season 7 is returning to a beloved character, because Will Poulter is reprising his role as game designer Colin Ritman. The actor first played Colin in Netflix's interactive Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, which gave viewers the chance to make their own choices and enjoy different storylines as a result. Poulter returns in the new season's fourth episode Plaything, which also stars Peter Capaldi as a murder suspect who has an unexpected link to a game from the '90s designed by Poulter's Colin. The actor's character is a standout not just because of his peroxide-blond hair and nasally accent, but because he was such an eccentric — so it will be interesting to see him once again, however briefly. Black Mirror can always shock viewers well, but it is also capable of delivering some of the most gut-wrenching, heartbreaking stories ever. Season 7 seems primed to do just that with a number of its episodes, particularly Common People, Hotel Reverie and Eulogy. Hotel Reverie stars Emma Corrin and Issa Rae, it follows the latter's Hollywood star Brandy Friday who stars in an immersive remake of a British classic that originally starred Corrin's Dorothy Chambers. Over the course of filming the new version and trying to get to the end credits so she can return home, Brandy comes to grow close to the actor's AI likeness and develop a deeper understanding of her sadness. Meanwhile, Common People sees Chris O'Dowd and Rashida Jones play a couple whose lives are turned upside down when Jones' Amanda is left fighting for her life and they have to sign up to a high-tech medical system known as Rivermind. Knowing Black Mirror, this event will prove to be an emotional rollercoaster for the characters in the same way that Eulogy's exploration of grief will likely be for viewers. The drama follows a man's (Paul Giamatti) ability to step into pictures to look back at old memories. Black Mirror season 7 premieres on Netflix on Thursday, 10 April.
