After six years, Adele’s highly anticipated fourth album, "30," will be released into the world on Friday.
In the time between her last album “25” and now, Adele got divorced from her husband, Simon Konecki, in 2019 after two years of marriage and over seven years together, began a co-parenting arrangement for their 9 year-old-son, Angelo, and got into a new relationship with sports agent Rich Paul.
With these massive life changes came a flood of new, foreign emotions. On Sunday night, Adele and Oprah Winfrey met for the first time for their interview as part of the CBS television special “Adele: One Night Only.” Throughout the sprawling conversation, the two covered topics ranging from her weight loss, marriage, childhood memories and dating.
We rounded up 10 of Adele’s biggest revelations she made about life, love, divorce and parenthood during her interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Here are 10 things we learned from Oprah Winfrey's interview with Adele:
1. Adele isn’t afraid of what people think about her new songs
When Winfrey referenced a past quote of the singer's where she admitted that she was neither shy nor embarrassed about falling apart, she said that she’s able to get through life because of music. Even despite this, Adele did share that at some points during the creation of “30,” she had moments of insecurity about the songs’ content.
“There were moments when I was writing the record or I would listen back to something and be like, 'That might be a bit too private, that might be a bit too about myself to put out,'" she told Winfrey. “But nothing is as scary as what I've been through over the last two, three years behind closed doors. So I'm not frightened about about what people may or might not know.”
During Sunday's concert portion of the evening, Adele debuted three new songs: "Hold On," "Love is a Game" and "I Drink Wine."
2. She has a complicated relationship with alcohol
In the period after her divorce and crafting her new album, Adele decided to stop drinking, which she said was a a great way to get to know herself. Winfrey brought up Adele’s fascination with alcohol, to which the singer confirmed, adding, “Yeah, because it took my dad from me.”
Adele's father passed away in May 2021, though later in the interview she said they had found their peace.
“Well, when I was going through everything a couple of years ago, when I was going through my divorce, yes,” she said of quitting drinking. “Not at the beginning. At first, I was probably keeping the alcohol industry alive. But you know, once I realized that I had a lot of work to do on myself, I stopped drinking and I started working out lots and stuff like that to keep me centered.”
3. She realized she was ready for divorce after telling her friends
The singer recalled the singular moment when she realized that she wasn’t happy in her marriage to Konecki.
“I do remember one of my friends, we were all were answering these questions in this very bougie magazine. And it was it was something like, ‘What's something that no one would ever know about you?’” she remembered. “And I just, I just said it in front of three of my friends. I was like, ‘I’m really not happy. I'm not living. I'm just plodding along.’”
She referenced one of her lyrics from her song “Love In The Dark,” which read, “I want to live and not just survive.”
“I've definitely felt like that,” she said, referring to the lyric. “But it was when I when I made it known to my own friends who thought I was really happy that actually I'm really unhappy and they all gasped. I felt like it was from there that I was like, ‘What am I doing? What am I doing it for?’”
4. Adele is 'embarrassed' that her marriage didn’t work
Adele made it clear to Winfrey during the interview that she takes marriage “very seriously.”
“It may seem like I don’t now, you know, it’s almost like I’ve disrespected it by getting married and then divorced so quickly,” she said. However, she wasn’t embarrassed that her marriage ended after a few years, clarifying, “I'm just embarrassed that I didn't make my marriage work. You know?"
Earlier in the interview, the singer said that she was “obsessed” with the idea of a nuclear family because she didn’t come from one, despite being surrounded by the idea of them her whole life in books and movies.
“I just from a very young age promised myself that when I have kids that we’d stay together, we will be that united family,” she explained. “And I tried for a really, really long time and then I was just so disappointed for my son. I was so disappointed for myself. I thought I was going to be the one that stopped doing those bloody patterns all the time.”
5. Her ex-husband and their son Angelo 'saved' her life
“I think Simon probably saved my life, to be honest with you,” she admitted. “He came at such a moment, where the stability that him and Angelo have given me, no one else would have ever been able to give me like. Especially at that time in my life, I was so young, and I just I think I would have got a bit lost in all of it.”
The singer admitted that she might have gone down some dark, self-destructive paths due to being overwhelmed had it not been for her ex-husband and their son.
“And he came in and was stable. The most stable person I've ever had in my life up until that point,” she said. “Even now, I trust him with my life … I feel like him and Angelo, they were angels sent to me.”
6. It was the first time Angelo ever saw her perform
The singer revealed that Sunday's taped performance was the first time that her son had seen her perform, aside from watching her rehearsals.
“It's the absolute honor of my life, baby, to have you here tonight,” she told him in the middle of her set. “And you look so beautiful and so handsome.”
7. She is open to having more children
When asked by Winfrey if she wanted more children, Adele replied, “I'm definitely open to it. I would like more children.”
“It wouldn't be the end of the world if I don’t, because I had Angelo but yeah, I think so,” she added.
8. Her weight loss was spurred by her anxiety, not wanting to lose weight
Over the past two years, headlines have focused on Adele’s weight loss. However, for her, it wasn’t about losing weight, it was about her anxiety.
“I had the most terrifying anxiety attacks after I left my marriage. They paralyzed me completely and made me so confused because I wouldn't be able to have any control over my body, but I was aware of that happening because it was kind of still very much there while my whole body was just like, on another planet it felt like,” she told Winfrey.
She said she felt a lot of trust with her trainer and his presence when she was feeling lost and didn’t feel as much anxiety when she was at the gym. Working out each day gave the singer "discipline" and helped give her plans each day when she didn't necessarily have them.
9. Her father never listened to her music until right before his death
Shortly before he passed away, Adele’s father admitted to her that he hadn’t listened to anything but “Hometown Glory,” one of her first songs which she wrote when she was 16, because “it was too painful.”
“So I forced him to listen, and it's that we both cried,” she said. “And then him sort of really understanding my child wounds through my song was amazing for me and him… And then when I played him the album — by then, he’d listened to all of ’19,’ all of ’21,’ all of ’25’ — and my mum was helping to look after him towards the end as well. And his favorites were all of my favorites, you know, which I thought was amazing.”
10. Her boyfriend said his first date with Adele was a 'business meeting'
Though they initially met on the dance floor at a birthday party, years later the two found themselves out for dinner, which Paul claimed was a business meeting.
“I’m like a business meeting about what?” she joked. “And then it was the first time we ever hung out only on our own, and not go out with friends and stuff like that. So that was a very natural way, I think that's how people would normally meet each other in real life.”
The singer said she was drawn in by his sense of humor, telling Winfrey, “He’s also hilarious… and very smart. You know, he’s very, very smart. It’s quite incredible watching him do what he does. And just he easiness of it. It’s just very smooth.”
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