Adele’s 30 music era is imminently upon us, and the singer is ready to open up about her private life and all the change—her divorce and her healing process—her new music will encapsulate.
Adele spoke to Vogue and British Vogue about her album and life now.
On the album itself, she told Vogue, “If the new album is a divorce album, it’s a different kind of divorce album. It was more me divorcing myself. Just being like, Bitch, fuckin’ hot mess, get your fuckin’ shit together!”
She told British Vogue, “I feel like this album is self-destruction, then self-reflection and then sort of self-redemption. But I feel ready. I really want people to hear my side of the story this time.”
The album, she added, is in part a tribute to her nine-year-old son Angelo for when he gets older. “I just felt like I wanted to explain to him, through this record, when he’s in his twenties or thirties, who I am and why I voluntarily chose to dismantle his entire life in the pursuit of my own happiness,” she said. “It made him really unhappy sometimes. And that’s a real wound for me that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to heal.”
Adele spoke candidly to Vogue about what led to her divorce from her husband and Angelo’s father Simon Konecki: “I was just going through the motions and I wasn’t happy,” she said. “Neither of us did anything wrong. Neither of us hurt each other or anything like that. It was just: I want my son to see me really love, and be loved. It’s really important to me.” The two were privately separated for some time before they shared the news with others.
She added to British Vogue, “Obviously Simon and I never fought over him [Angelo] or anything like that. Angelo’s just like, ‘I don’t get it.’” She sighed. “I don’t really get it either. There are rules that are made up in society of what happens and doesn’t happen in marriage and after marriage, but I’m a very complex person. I’ve always let him know how I’m feeling from a very young age because I felt quite frazzled as an adult.”
Adele started pursuing her own happiness after the divorce, and therapy was a guiding force for her, she made clear to Vogue: “My therapist told me that I had to sit with my little seven-year-old self. Because she was left on her own. And I needed to go sit with her and really address how I felt when I was growing up. And issues with my dad. Which I’d been avoiding.” Those issues included “not being sure if someone who is supposed to love you loves you, and doesn’t prioritize you in any capacity when you’re little. You assume it and get used to it. So my relationship with men in general, my entire life, has always been: You’re going to hurt me, so I’ll hurt you first. It’s just toxic and prevents me from actually finding any happiness. Sometimes, with my own son, he could talk to me in a certain way, and I shut down. With my own fucking child. I’ll take it so to heart, what he’s saying, when actually what he’s saying is, No, I don’t want to go to bed.”
Adele spoke a little to Vogue about her relationship with sports agent Rich Paul. They were friends originally. “He was always there, I just didn’t see him,” she said. She revealed that they met at a party a couple years ago. “I was a bit drunk. I said, ‘Do you want to sign me? I’m an athlete now.’ He’s just so fucking funny. He was dancing. All the other guys were just sitting around. He was just dancing away.”
On dating itself, “It’s been shit. And 99.9 percent of the stories that have been written about me are absolutely made up.” With Paul, Adele feels safe: “I don’t feel anxious or nervous or frazzled. It’s quite the opposite. It’s wild.” She’s confident in the relationship too: “I’m a 33-year-old divorced mother of a son, who’s actually in charge. The last thing I need is someone who doesn’t know where they’re at, or what they want. I know what I want. And I really know what I don’t want.”
As for comments on her body, Adele admitted there’s been some feedback that’s been hard to take in: “My body’s been objectified my entire career,” she said. “It’s not just now. I understand why it’s a shock. I understand why some women especially were hurt. Visually I represented a lot of women. But I’m still the same person.”
“The most brutal conversations were being had by other women about my body,” she added. “I was very fucking disappointed with that. That hurt my feelings.”
She expanded to British Vogue on her own journey prioritizing fitness to heal: “It was because of my anxiety. Working out, I would just feel better,” she said. “It was never about losing weight, it was always about becoming strong and giving myself as much time every day without my phone. I got quite addicted to it. I work out two or three times a day.”
“So I do my weights in the morning, then I normally hike or I box in the afternoon, and then I go and do my cardio at night,” she said. “I was basically unemployed when I was doing it. And I do it with trainers. It’s not doable for a lot of people,” she said, acknowledging her privilege.
Alyssa Bailey
News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton).
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