Adele has detailed her battles with anxiety and depression, revealing she was left bedbound and struggling with her mental health in the midst of her divorce from Simon Konecki.
The Easy On Me singer, 33, explained that she suffered with both psychological and physical problems that were worsened by the break down of her two-year marriage, noting that a gluten intolerance also contributed to her depression.
Discussing her battle to get out of bed, during which she simply lay watching The Sopranos despite knowing she ‘needed to stay busy’, she told Rolling Stone magazine: ‘Anything that could soothe my anxiety, I threw myself in headfirst. [I travelled] anywhere where there’s meant to be brilliant energy.’
As well as travel, Adele stopped drinking for six months to alleviate ‘hangxiety’ – a term given for the negative feelings to one’s mental health in the wake of drinking.
Tough: Adele has detailed her battles with anxiety and depression and how she was left bedbound and watching The Sopranos at her lowest point
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Adele’s split from Simon, who she wed in 2011 and with whom she shares son Angelo, nine, came to light on Good Friday 2019 and it was then she began battling her woes.
She explained that she struggled with the intensity of the reveal and wound up spending increasing time alone due to joint custody – leading to her nights alone without Angelo in the house, watching The Sopranos and dealing with ‘this tsunami of emotions’ that was hitting her.
Adele explained that when she celebrated her 31st birthday in May 2019 with friends, she was feeling positive – yet the next day things hit her harder.
She said: ‘I remember going upstairs, and doing my face, and getting into bed. I felt quite hopeful. It was the first time I felt I’d had a really nice evening and I was OK being in the house and going to bed on my own…
‘I was not excited, but I was looking forward to the next day.’
It was the next day however that she wound up reclusive in bed, watching The Sopranos instead of keeping busy as she knew she should.
Open: Adele has admitted she was ‘f*****g devastated by her her divorce from Simon as she graced the cover of Rolling Stone
She went on: ‘I was like, ‘This is going to be really f**king up-and-down” before which she launched her determined drive to overcome her battles.
‘Anything that could soothe my anxiety, I threw myself in headfirst. I anywhere where there’s meant to be brilliant energy’.
She revealed she went to Jamaica, Greece, and a desert in Arizona, before also finding out she was allergic to most forms of gluten, which she discovered can cause depression as a side effect to the sensitivity.
Adele said: ‘So, I was like, ‘Oh, great. Thanks, guys. Could have had a really fun twenties.’
The star has made headlines in recent months for her dramatic body transformation, and did admit in her interview she became ‘addicted to the gym’.
She explained: ‘If I can transform my strength and my body like this, surely I can do it to my emotions and to my brain and to my inner well-being.’
‘That was what drove me. It just coincided with all of the emotional work that I was doing with myself as a visual for it, basically.’
She also shared that when the news of her divorce broke, a close friend flew from London to LA to be by her side and make sure she did not feel alone as the news spread.
Gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, the singer confessed she had come so far from the person she was before she tied the knot to Simon that she made the difficult decision to walk away from their marriage.
Adele, who recently went public with her new romance with Rich Paul, added that her single life while living in Los Angeles lasted little more than ‘five seconds,’ after her friends’ failed attempts to set her up on blind dates.
Adele said: ‘I didn’t really know myself.’ I thought I did. I don’t know if it was because my Saturn return or if it was because I was well and truly sort of heading into my thirties, but I just didn’t like who I was. I didn’t really know myself. I thought I did. But I just didn’t like who I was.’
Reflecting on the end of their marriage, she added: ‘It made me really sad. Then having so many people that I don’t know, know that I didn’t make that work… it f*****g devastated me. I was embarrassed. No one made me feel embarrassed, but you feel like you didn’t do a good job.’
Let’s talk: The British superstar talked about music, marriage and family in a far-reaching interview with the publication
The mother-of-one also shared that she was initially ‘bewildered’ by her fans’ response to her divorce, with many expressing excitement over the fact the split would likely inspire a new album.
‘During something like that, that kind of significant thing to happen in life, your mind sort of goes to those places: ”Why don’t they like me? Why would they write that if they’ve followed me for 10 years?”’ Adele said.
She added: ‘But in reality, that’s not their responsibility. In reality, their responsibility as a fan is to want a good record and to hope I deliver. So I took it with a pinch of salt, and it was fine.’
Adele also explained her decision to delay the release of her much-anticipated album 30 by more than a year, after penning songs as an emotional reaction to her split from Simon.
She added: ‘If it wasn’t coming out now, I think I probably would never put it out.’
‘I know I would’ve changed my mind and been like, ‘It’s moved on. Let’s start the next album.’ And I couldn’t do that to this album. I feel like it deserves to come out.’
Adele has also moved on, embarking on a new romance with American sports agent Rich Paul, at 39 six years her senior and hugely successful in his own right through his representation of numerous prominent NBA players.
The loved-up couple ‘met on a dance floor at a mutual friend’s birthday party years ago.’
She told Rolling Stone that she was initially reluctant to even tell her friends about her new romance, explaining: ‘I didn’t really tell many of my friends at the beginning because I wanted to keep it to myself.’
A ‘few’ songs on her new album are about her first romantic relationship after her divorce, including All Night Parking – which is ‘an ode to the intoxicating feeling of falling for someone new’.
However, Adele did not share any further details about the relationship.
In her interview, Adele also clarified that despite their split, Simon ‘was a great husband’ and ‘is still one of her best friends’.
But the relationship appears to have caught the singer by surprise, with Adele freely admitting her superstar status made it difficult to find someone who wasn’t instantly intimidated – a subject she explores in new song Oh My God.
‘I lasted five seconds [dating in Los Angeles],’ she joked, admitting her close friends even attempted to set her up on a blind date.
‘You can’t set me up on a f**king blind date! I’m like, ‘How’s that going to work?’ There’ll be paparazzi outside and someone will call [gossip site] DeuxMoi, or whatever it’s f**king called! It ain’t happening.’
Adele has found a new home for herself and son Angelo in Los Angeles, purchasing a Beverly Hills mansion for a reported $9.5million in 2016, a far cry from her humble beginnings in working class Tottenham, north London.
All over: The singer confessed she had become so far from the person she was before marrying ex-husband Simon and made the difficult decision to walk away from their marriage (pictured in 2013)
She admitted that it wasn’t until 2013 that she truly began to love LA, having previously considered it ‘a ghost town’.
However, when she attended the Oscars that year – and scooped a gong for her Bond song Skyfall – she, Simon and Angelo were renting a house and it was then that Adele ‘fell in love’ with the city.
The singer has since invested more than $30million into American real estate, and her relocation to the US has inevitably resulted in the development of close friendships with other high profile stars – notably her neighbours, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and TV personality Nicole Richie.
She explained: ‘They humanized me because I had avoided talking to anyone that was ever famous in any capacity, because I was like, ‘Well, I’m not famous.’ I’m very British like that.
‘We never spoke about work, which was amazing, because most of the time when I catch up with someone, they want to know all about my work, and I’m like, ”I don’t want to talk about that. Can we talk about something else? I’m knackered.”
The star also confessed that she has her own Finsta – a fake Instagram account – and a fake Twitter account for ‘checking what’s come out about her’.
She quipped: ‘I know how to trace something online, like no one’s business, back to the original source or leak, more than anyone on my team.’
With her new album set for release in little more than a week, Adele admits it helped her find closure with her estranged father Mark Evans before his death.
Evans, who separated from the singer’s mother when she was three years old, passed away aged 57 in May after battling bowel cancer.
Difficulties: Adele freely admitting her superstar status made it difficult to find someone who wasn’t instantly intimidated by her enormous fame
But she admits she resolved her differences with her father after years of feeling unloved, and made sure he was the first person to hear her latest collection of songs.
‘I don’t think I understood the deepness of how I felt about him until we spoke,’ she said.
Elsewhere, Adele spoke about how ‘isolating’ her fame can be, explaining she would often choose to skip her friends important events for fear of disrupting them.
‘I took it to an incredibly isolating level,’ the star said.
She also spoke about her famous friends Jennifer Lawrence and Nicole Richie, who are also her neighbours in LA.
Adele said of her celebrity besties: ‘They humanized me because I had avoided talking to anyone that was ever famous in any capacity, because I was like, ‘Well, I’m not famous.’ I’m very British like that.’
The mother of one explained that she and Nicole and Jennifer ‘never spoke about work, which was amazing, because most of the time when I catch up with someone, they want to know all about my work, and I’m like, I don’t want to talk about that.’
Adding that she tells them: ‘Can we talk about something else? I’m knackered.’
Adele has been friends with 31-year-old Jennifer, who is pregnant with her first child, since they met at the Oscars in 2013.
While anticipation builds around her new music, Adele insists she will not be touring the world as she did for her third album, 25, as a consequence of ongoing COVID restrictions.
‘It’s too unpredictable, with all the rules and stuff,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anyone coming to my show scared. And I don’t want to get COVID, either.’
Last month, Adele confirmed her album’s release date and title alongside a lengthy note in which she explained that she finally felt ready to release her music.
She wrote: ‘I was certainly nowhere to near where I’d hoped to be when I first started it nearly 3 years ago.
‘Quite the opposite actually. I rely on routine and consistency to feel safe, I always have. And yet there I was knowingly – willingly even, throwing myself into a maze of absolute mess and inner turmoil!
‘I’ve learned a lot of blistering home truths about myself along the way. I’ve shed many layers but also wrapped myself in new ones.
‘Discovered genuinely useful and wholesome materials to lead with, and I felt like I’ve finally found my feeling again. I’d go as far to say that I’ve never felt this peaceful in my life.’
Adele told how she sought support from the album writing process, which left her ‘sobbing relentlessly’.
She wrote: ‘And so, I’m ready to finally put this album out. It was my ride or die throughout the most turbulent period of my life. When I was writing it, it was my friend who came over with a bottle of wine and a takeaway to cheer me up.
Adeleville: The singer has since invested more than $30million into American real estate, and her relocation to the US has inevitably resulted in the development of close friendships with her high-profile neighbours
‘My wise friend who always gives the best advice. Not to forget the one who’s wild and says ‘It’s your Saturn babes f**k it, you only live once’.
‘The friend who’d stay up all night and just hold my while I’d sob relentlessly not knowing why. The get up and go friend who would pick me up and take me out somewhere I said I didn’t want to go but just wanted to get me out the house for some vitamin D.
‘That friend who snuck in and left a magazine with a face mask and some bath salts to make me feel loved while inadvertently reminding me not only what month it actually was but that I should probably exercise some self care.
‘And then that friend who no matter what, checked in on me even thought I’d stopped checking in with them because I’d become so consumed by my own grief.
‘I’ve painstakingly rebuilt my house and my heart since then and this album narrates it. Home is where the heart is x’.
The superstar crooner even shared that her son Angelo features on the album, telling the outlet that he can be heard on track My Little Love.
The song includes ‘voice memos of Angelo asking tough questions she tries her best to answer’.
Of taking the bedtime recordings, she explained to Rolling Stone: ‘If started getting anxious about something I might or might not have said, I could just listen back to this and be like, ”OK, I’m fine.”’
She added that the new album is ‘about showing Angelo who his mother really is: a layered and complicated woman with an identity outside of their relationship, who’s struggled and cried and hurt’.
The ’30’ title falls in line with Adele’s preferred way of naming her albums, with all three of her studio albums named after her age.
Her debut album 19 was released in 2008, followed by 21 in 2011 and 25 in 2015.
As Adele has followed the previous pattern, the 30 album has plenty of inspiration, having been the age she separated from ex-husband Simon.
Tragic: Adele admits her new album helped her find closure with her estranged father Mark Evans before his death to bowel cancer at the age of 57
Elsewhere, Adele teased details of her upcoming CBS special in the latest trailer for Adele One Night Only, which is due to air in the US on Sunday and features a chat with Oprah Winfrey.
The singer looked incredible in a slick white suit with bedazzled detailing as she sat in Oprah’s rose garden, similar to the backdrop of Meghan and Harry’s famous interview with the TV icon, 67. Their chat took place in CBS journalist Gayle King’s back yard.
In the teaser for the show, Adele, who wore an incredible sculpted black gown for the appearance, said: ‘It will look really elegant and then I’ll tell a load of filthy jokes and stand-up, so it’ll be real whiplash!’
Exciting: Elsewhere, Adele teased details of her upcoming CBS special in the latest trailer for Adele One Night Only, which is due to air in the US on Sunday and features a chat with Oprah Winfrey
The singer took to the stage at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California for an intimate concert before sitting down with the chat show host for an interview. The two-hour special, entitled Adele One Night Only, will air on the channel on November 14, five days before the release of her long-awaited fourth album, 30.
Oprah opened saying: ‘Nobody is more compelling with the truth than Adele.’ Adele warned Oprah about her foul-mouthed antics on-stage and joked about her show.
The camera then shot to Gabrielle Union her husband Dwyane Wade and Lizzo before Adele was seen singing Rolling In The Deep and saying: ‘I’m gonna do some old ones for you, I’m gonna do some new ones for you’.
Oprah went on: ‘It’s a very special night, join me when I interview the one and only Adele. Adele then said to the camera: ‘I invite you to join me for one night only’, before she was seen saying to the crowd: ‘How posh is this?’
Amazing: The singer took to the stage at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles , California for an intimate concert before sitting down with the chat show host for an interview
In a further clip released by People, Oprah said: ‘The concert tonight is a celebration of your biggest hits and the debut of the new songs of 30. You start with Hello, to which Adele said: ‘I always have to start with that because it’s a bit weird to get halfway through and do it. So yeah I’m starting with that’.
Oprah then informed Adele that the music video for Hello had been viewed over 3 billion times, to which she said: ‘3 billion! I didn’t know that! That’s insane’.
The TV legend pointed out that the song means a lot to many of her fans and asked Adele what it meant to her.
She detailed: ‘The show is the first time I’m singing it from where I am now which I think is great. The song to me was the beginning of a time by myself and I hadn’t figured out what it was that I had to do for that…
‘When I wrote it it was an ode to little me and the old me. It’s a song that’s saying “I’m still here. Like Hello! I’m still here”. In every aspect of my life’.
It was first revealed last month that Adele had landed the special, in which she will both perform at the iconic venue as well as chatting to Oprah in a rare and candid chat.
It comes after a snippet of Adele’s new track Hold On was heard in Amazon’s touching Christmas advert, released by the retailer on Monday.
In the clip, Adele belts out heart-breaking lyrics, crooning: ‘Let time be patient, let pain be gracious, just hold on, I will survive.’
Amazon’s heartwarming Christmas advert focuses on the kindness of strangers following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two minute clip tells the story of a young woman returning to something that resembles normal life after the challenges of the last year and discovering the power of kindness.
Adele can be heard singing: ‘I swear to god I’m such a mess, the harder I try I regress.’
She adds: ‘Every day feels like the road I’m on, might just open up and swallow me whole,’ with The Sun reporting the mother-of-one is crooning about her ex.
Speaking previously about the release of another deeply personal album, Adele said on Heart Radio she’s ‘done a lot of learning over the past few years, more than ever, and there is a reason I am one of the most complicated and complex people I’ve known in my life.’
‘And I feel like I’m a little bit closer to understanding why so that’s what my side is. I have huge amount of feelings as well, it doesn’t mean they go away,’ she added.
