Tom Parker’s widow honours Wanted singer at Father’s Day charity football match

By Charlotte McLaughlin, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter

Tom Parker has been honoured with a charity football match on Father’s Day – more than a year on from his death.

Kelsey Parker, who had two young children with the boy band star, was at Bromley Football Club in London on Sunday to see celebrities take on the challenge.

Her husband announced in October 2020 he had been diagnosed with stage four brain tumour glioblastoma and died in March 2022, aged 33.

Paying tribute to him on Sunday, she wrote on Instagram: “Celebrating you today. Always loved, forever missed.”

She also shared a video of their family dancing to The Wanted chart-topping 2011 hit Glad You Came.

She told her followers earlier in the week that more than 2,000 tickets were sold ahead of the match to raise money for a brain tumour charity.

Ahead Of The Game, which will receive 100 per cent of the money raised, works with cancer sufferers and their families to provide rehabilitation, mental and emotional support as well as financial help.

Former Lioness Katie Chapman, Love Island star Finley Tapp and Coronation Street actor Ryan Thomas were among the famous faces battling it out.

Chapman, a former Chelsea captain, was pictured holding a trophy and posing with Parker when the match was over.

Her team – who were up against stiff competition from Gogglebox star George Baggs, Union J singer Josh Cuthbert and Love Island 2022 runner up Luca Bish – took home the victory after penalties.

The Parkers – who let cameras into their lives for Channel 4’s Tom Parker: Inside My Head, a documentary following the star’s life after his diagnosis – married in 2018.

They had a daughter Aurelia Rose in 2019 and a son Bodhi in 2020.