Adele and Oprah discuss divorce, weight loss and Taylor Swift

Adele said she was “embarrassed” by her divorce, in an exclusive and extensive interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The star said she felt she “didn’t respect” the idea of ​​marriage when she separated from husband Simon Konecki in 2018.

She added that the “terrible anxiety attacks” following her divorce led her to adopt an exercise regimen that led her to lose 100lb in two years.

The US primetime special marked her first TV interview about her new album.

It also saw the star perform a selection of new songs and classic hits at the stunning Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, in the shadow of a Hollywood sign.

Featuring stars such as Lizzo, James Corden and Melissa McCarthy, the sunset concert was the first time Adele’s young son, Angelo, had seen her perform live.

“It’s been the absolute honor of my life, honey, to have you here tonight,” she said.

On the show, the star even helped a local man propose to his girlfriend, Ashley – to Make You Feel My Love after the stunned bride-to-be said “yes” and burst into tears.

“Thank God she said yes, because I don’t know who I’m going to sing this with next,” laughed Adele.

Airing on CBS in the US, the two-hour special currently has no UK broadcast schedule. A separate ITV show, An Audience With Adele, hosted by Alan Carr, will air on Sunday, November 21.

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“I’ve been obsessed with a nuclear family my whole life because I’ve never come from one,” said the singer, whose father ran away when she was two years old.

“From a very young age [I] promised myself that, when I have a baby, we’ll talk together. And I tried for a long time. “

Now 33, Adele said she first realized her marriage was falling apart when she took a personality test in a glossy magazine.

One of the questions asked, “what can’t anyone know about you?”, and she exclaimed to her friends: “I’m really not happy. I’m not living, I’m just being boring. “

“They were all gasping for air,” she recalls. “From there, I was like ‘What am I doing? What am I doing it for?'”

Although Adele has been together for eight years with Konecki, she previously said their marriage and separation took place in 2018.

“I take marriage very seriously … and it seems I don’t anymore,” she said regretfully. “It’s almost like I disrespected it by getting married and then divorced so quickly. I’m ashamed it was so quick.”

Adele emphasizes that she still loves Konecki, even if she doesn’t “love” him. The couple still live across from each other in Los Angeles, and continue to raise their son, Angelo.

She went on to credit Konecki for “saving her life” after she became famous.

“At that point in my life, I was too young and I thought I was going to have to get through it all. I could easily go down some devious paths and destroy myself from being so overwhelmed by it all. chief.

“And he came and was the most stable person I’ve had in my life up to that point. Even now I trust them with my life.”

Songs like Hello and someone Like You have moved millions, but Adele admits her musical prowess is a mystery to her.

“I don’t think, as a person, I’m capable of singing. I’m retreating from somewhere else [and] I don’t know how I access it.

“It’s a myth, because I didn’t think it was that profound in real life,” she laughed.

When asked why she divulged so much private information in the lyrics, Adele explained that she wanted to reassure people who are going through similar experiences.

“Music has helped me in many situations, and I want to do the same for people… to be reminded that they’re not alone.

“There are moments when I’m writing a record, or I’ll listen to something again and say, ‘That might be a little too personal.’ But there’s nothing scarier than what I’ve been through in the past. the past two years [or] three years behind closed doors. So I’m not scared. “

The singer told Winfrey that the “biggest wound” she suffered as a child was the “absolute lack of presence and effort” from her father, Marc Evans.

“I have absolutely no expectations of anyone, because I learned not to have a last name through my father,” she said. “He’s the reason I don’t fully understand what it feels like to be in a loving, loving relationship with someone.”

Despite being estranged for many years, the father and son have been reconciled for the past three years, after Evans fell seriously ill.

During that time, he confessed he only listened to her first song, Hometown Glory.

“He never played any of my other music,” she said. “He said, ‘It’s too painful.'”

But the star wants to play him one of her new songs, To Be Loved, which shows how his absence has affected her ability to trust others.

“That was great for me and him,” she said. “I thought he could hear me sing, but needless to say – we are very similar.”

She eventually managed to stream him all of her new albums via Zoom, shortly before his death in April.

“His favorites are all my favorites, that’s amazing,” Adele told Winfrey, “and he’s proud of me for doing that.

“So it was very, very healing [and] when he died, literally the wound was closed.”

Adele’s appearance over the past two years has been the subject of much speculation, after she lost nearly 45 kg in a new training regimen.

The star said the change was “primarily” to manage her anxiety.

She explained: “I experienced the most terrible anxiety attacks after leaving my marriage. “They completely paralyze me, and make me very confused because I won’t be able to control my body.”

After noticing that her anxiety subsided at the gym, she started walking every day.

“It really helped me get in the right mindset,” she says,

Winfrey recalls her own weight loss experience, and that some felt “uncomfortable” and “abandoned” when she first went on the diet.

Suggesting that she would hear similar comments, Adele replied, “I’m not shocked or even amazed by that because my body has reflected my entire career. I’m too loud or too small; me or i’m hot” m no.

“But it’s not my job to validate how people feel about their bodies. I feel bad when it makes anyone feel terrible about themselves – but that’s not my job. It’s my job. I’m trying to organize my own life. I can’t take any more worries.”

During the concert, Adele introduced three new songs from her upcoming album, 30 – I Drink Wine, Love Is A Game and Hold On.

Winfrey chose the second song as the highlight, recounting the lyrics: “I’m such a mess / The harder I try, the more I fall behind / I’m my own worst enemy / Now I really hate being me.“

Adele said she often feels this way during a divorce – and her friends will tell her to “hold on”.

“It’s exhausting trying to get on with it. It’s a process — the divorce process, the single parenting process, the process of not seeing your kids every day. [It] Not really a plan I had when I became a mother. “

Speaking ahead of the TV special, Winfrey said she thought the song would become a “worldwide anthem for anyone struggling with anything”.

When Adele took his son to see Taylor Swift’s Reputation stadium tour in 2018, his jaw dropped.

When he was six years old, he couldn’t believe how many people were at the show, “because he used to come to my stadium concerts for rehearsals and it would be empty,” laughs Adele. .

But she said Angelo recently learned how popular his mother really is, after her latest video premiered on YouTube.

“One day he watched the Easy On Me countdown video… and he said, ‘There are 150,000 people waiting!’ Then he read the comments and he said, ‘People really like you!’.

“So he started to get it a little bit, but not really.”