The notoriously private singer is finally giving fans the lowdown on her personal life.
After wrapping her world tour in 2017, Adele has mostly kept a low profile. Still, the songstress made headlines as reports on the goings-on in her personal life. With new music on the horizon, she’s making a return to the spotlight in grand fashion – from huge billboard teasers of her new music around the world to the covers of both American and British Vogue. And, in her first interview in five years, she’s opening up – big time.
Among the topics she discussed was her divorce. She and ex-Simon Konecki, with whom she shares 8-year-old son Angelo, split in 2019 and became officially divorced in March of this year. She says there wasn’t really any big drama prior to their separation – she just wasn’t happy anymore.
“It just wasn’t… It just wasn’t right for me anymore,” she tells British Vogue. “I didn’t want to end up like a lot of other people I knew. I wasn’t miserable miserable, but I would have been miserable had I not put myself first. But, yeah, nothing bad happened or anything like that.”
“I was just going through the motions and I wasn’t happy,” she also tells American Vogue. “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. I’ve been on my journey to find my true happiness ever since.”
At the time, reporters were all trying to get the scoop on what happened, and Adele got candid about how she felt following the split, sharing, “I was embarrassed. I was really embarrassed. That thing of not being able to make something work.”
“We’ve been trained as women to keep trying, even by the movies we watched when we were little,” she adds. “At the time it broke my heart, but I actually find it so interesting now. How we’re told to suck it up. Well, f–k that.”
One major consideration she had before filing for divorce though was how it would affect her son. However, she and Simon were on the same page when it came to custody.
“Obviously Simon and I never fought over him or anything like that,” she shared. “Angelo’s just like, ‘I don’t get it.’”
“My son has had a lot of questions. Really good questions, really innocent questions, that I just don’t have an answer for,” Adele says. “‘Why can’t you still live together?’ I just felt like I wanted to explain to him, through this [new] 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. 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.”
She and her ex are also still close, both figuratively and literally – he currently lives across the street from her so he can spend time with their son.
Amid her divorce, Adele made the headlines again – this time because of her physique.
In May 2020, Adele posted a photo on Instagram of herself wearing a black mini-dress with her dramatic “100 lbs” weight loss fully on display, which caught the definitely caught the public eye.
“My body’s been objectified my entire career. It’s not just now. I understand why it’s a shock,” she tells American Vogue. “I understand why some women especially were hurt. Visually I represented a lot of women. But I’m still the same person.”
She explains that the weight loss was actually a by-product of trying to deal with her mental health struggles and thinks that “one of the reasons people lost the plot was because actually, it was over a two-year period.”
“It was because of my anxiety. Working out, I would just feel better,” she shares with the British magazine. “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.”
More recently, Adele has found new love with sports agent Rich Paul, founder of Klutch Sports Group, which represents a number of prominent NFL and NBA players including LeBron James. The two first sparked dating speculations in July when they attended Game Five of the NBA Finals.
“I didn’t mean to go public with it,” she told American Vogue. “I just wanted to go to the game. I just love being around him. I just love it.”
Dipping her toes back in the dating pool, however, was not easy, telling British Vogue, “I did date before Rich, but they hated it. They’d find it stressful being out or seen with me, which meant that I guarded all of it beyond. It never evolved because we were never experiencing things together.” Rich was different. “He’s not frazzled by it at all.”
Adele made their romance Instagram official in September. And she was totally gushing about her man in the interview.
“It feels like it’s consistent and considerate enough that I don’t care who knows,” she shares. “He’s great. He’s so f–kng funny. He’s so smart, you know.”
