Adolescence star Owen Cooper reveals secret Liverpool FC message he snuck into hit Netflix drama

The teenage star shot to fame after portraying troubled teen Jamie Miller on the mini-series, which shot to the top of the Netflix charts across the world earlier this year.

While the young star has been lauded for his performance in the show, diehard Liverpool FC fan Owen has revealed that he snuck a tribute to his beloved team into the final edit of the series.

In a clip shared by the Premier League champions on social media, Owen attended the league winning match at Anfield last month alongside fellow Reds supporter and Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown. He revealed to the actress that he wrote a hidden message in episode three of the drama series in tribute of his beloved Liverpool FC.

In episode three, troubled teen Jamie appears alongside child psychologist Briony Ariston, played by Erin Doherty, in an episode filmed almost entirely inside a visitors room at the youth detention centre he is being held at.

Owen revealed that director Phillip Barantini encouraged the crew to graffiti the table Jamie is sat at. He said: “Do you know the table in episode three of Adolescence? That was... so, Phil gave a pencil to all the crew and we could draw on it or write something. And I wrote LFC > MUFC. And it stayed in, Phil kept it in!”

Eagle-eyed viewers will be able to spot the graffiti on the table in the show.

Adolescence became a worldwide hit when the four-part drama, also starring Stephen Graham, was released in March. The show even sparked political debate around issues facing young boys and men including misogyny, violence against women and masculinity, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backing plans to show the series in schools throughout the country.

It also sparked backlash from some groups, who claimed that the show was “anti-white” after prominent figures including Elon Musk circulated false reports that the show was based on the real-life Southport stabbings and had swapped the race of the perpetrator to be a young, white boy.

However, filming for the show had already commenced before the stabbings took place, with the show’s creators Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne repeatedly stating that Jamie’s story was not based on any specific case. Instead, Adolescence depicts a fictional story inspired by several cases where young girls had been killed by young boys, including the deaths of Ava White and Eilanne Andam, and a rising trend in knife crime.