Dua Lipa and Callum Turner fell in love with Palermo last summer, posting pictures of cannoli, narrow alleys and romantic cafés during their holiday in the Sicilian capital.
Now the city is abuzz with rumours that the singer and actor will return in September to tie the knot and take over Villa Igiea, a luxury hotel overlooking the Mediterranean where royals including Edward VII and George V once slept.
REDA/Getty images
Giornale di Sicilia, an Italian newspaper, claimed a wedding planner had been hard at work in Palermo getting ready for an event from September 5 to 7.
The news spread like wildfire. Some outlets promised a procession of private jets flying in celebrities for the event; the newspaper La Repubblica predicted it would be “the wedding of the year” and the mayor of one small village in central Italy invited the couple to honeymoon there.
Dua Lipa and Callum Turner first visited Palermo last year
A spokeswoman for Lipa did not respond to a request for comment.
After Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos chose Venice for their star-studded wedding last year, a pop star picking Palermo would underline the city’s rise from mafia stronghold to tourism magnet featuring crowded bars and fancy restaurants in what were once no-go areas.
Lipa, 30, and Turner, 36, first visited the city last summer. Lipa shared photos of the trip with her 88 million followers on Instagram.
“She drank Campari soda, he drank an Old Fashioned, and they ate olives while playing cards,” said Patrick Lanzino, the manager of the Colletti bar in Palermo’s Kalsa district, where the couple stopped by during their trip.
“She was very sweet and they seemed like a normal couple.
“A few people asked her for a picture. We asked her if it bothered her and she said no, she was used to it — not a problem.”
Lipa had already won over many in the city by posing in the pink strip of its Serie B football team.
Lipa in a Palermo FC shirt for a campaign with Puma in 2023
Turner, a former model from London, was previously in a long-term relationship with Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret in The Crown actress. His acting credits include the Fantastic Beasts films and Masters of the Air on Apple TV+, and he has been tipped to be the next James Bond.
He was introduced to Lipa, who moved back to London from Kosovo as a teenager, at the River Café in Hammersmith, west London, but did not see her again until a year later, in 2024, when they ran into each other at a restaurant in Los Angeles. Later, Lipa said she recalled thinking: “Oh, it’s that really hot guy from the River Café.”
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The two hit it off when they realised they were both reading Hernan Diaz’s novel Trust. In June last year, Lipa announced they were engaged.
Italian media reported that the couple had hired the well-known wedding planner Alessandra Grillo, who oversaw the 2018 nuptials of Chiara Ferragni, an Italian influencer, and the rapper Fedez in Noto, Sicily.
Lipa is not the first British singer to appreciate Sicily. The Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr bought and ran a hotel in Taormina and is known to use Sicilian dialect when addressing the crowd at concerts in Italy. Mick Hucknall of Simply Red bought an 18th-century former mill on the slopes of Mount Etna and opened a winery on its grounds.
Villa Igiea was once owned by the English admiral William Domville before it was turned into a hotel in the 20th century, hosting Edward VII in 1907 and George V in 1925.
Villa IgieaLeisa Tyler/LightRocket/Getty Images
Palermo is rebounding from decades during which the Cosa Nostra mafia dominated local business and politics. “This marriage will be a message to Palermo that people love the city’s beauty, despite its problems in the past,” said Lanzino. “Something stayed with this couple after their visit, which is why they are coming back.”