Adele [1] bared her soul during her One Night Only [2] concert special on CBS on 14 Nov. The singer performed 10 songs, including "Hello" and "Rolling in the Deep," as well as "Easy on Me," "Hold On," and a couple other new tracks off her upcoming 30 album. The star-studded guest list included Selena Gomez [3], Lizzo [4], Drake, Gabrielle Union [5], Melissa McCarthy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Ava DuVernay [6], and James Corden.
Adele also sat down with Oprah Winfrey [7] to discuss the inspiration behind her new music, as well as some deeply personal topics, including her divorce from Simon Konecki [8], coparenting their son Angelo, dating sports agent Rich Paul [9], and her recent weight loss. Read on for the biggest revelations Adele shared during her One Night Only concert special ahead.
Adele's son, Angelo, saw her perform live for the first time during the concert special. The singer revealed that her 9-year-old son has tagged along on rehearsals but is only now beginning to grasp that she's famous. "This Is the first time my son has ever seen me perform," Adele told the crowd. She then turned her attention to her son in the audience, saying, "It's the absolute honour of my life, baby, to have you here tonight. And you look so beautiful and so handsome."
She became obsessed with the idea of having a nuclear family due to her parents's separation. "I just, from a very young age, promised myself that when I have kids, we'd stay together, we would be that united family . . . I thought I was going to be the one to stop doing those bloody patterns all the time," Adele told Winfrey. Adele also said she felt like she "disrespected" the sanctity of marriage "by getting married and then divorced so quickly," adding that she was "embarrassed" by her split.
Adele first candidly opened up about the idea of divorce while taking a magazine quiz with friends. She told Winfrey about a question that came up in the quiz that read, "What's something no one would ever know about you?" It was then that she told friends, "I'm really not happy. I'm not living. I'm just plodding along." That was the moment Adele realised she didn't know why she was still married.
Divorce aside, Adele believes Konecki "saved" her. "I think Simon probably saved my life, to be honest with you. 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," she told Winfrey, noting that her early years of fame almost lead her down a bad path. "Even now, I trust him with my life."
Konecki hasn't told Adele what he thinks about the divorce album. "We don't sit around and talk about it. Like 'How you feeling? 'Easy on Me' is at 40 million streams, how are you feeling?" Adele said with a laugh. "He knows what kind of an artist I am and that I have to dig deep and tell my stories."
"Hold On" is about the "exhausting" process of coping with her divorce. Adele gets deep in the song "Hold On" as she sings about being "such a mess" and being her "own worst enemy." Speaking to Winfrey, she explained, "My friends always would say 'hold on' when I would feel like the lyrics in the verse. But it was just exhausting trying to like keep going with it. It's a process. The process of a divorce. The process of being a single parent. The process of not seeing your child every single day wasn't really a plan I had when I became a mum."
Adele's boyfriend, Rich Paul, claims their first date was a business meeting. Adele and Paul have known each other for a few years, though they had only hung out in large groups. The singer told Winfrey that the sports management CEO still claims to this day that their first date was just about business. "I'm like a business meeting about what?" Adele said with a laugh. "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."
Her new relationship is the first time she's loved herself. Adele spoke about the "easiness" of her relationship with Paul and noted that the timing was right for them, considering that she went on a healing journey following her divorce. "It's the first time I've loved myself and been open to loving and being loved by someone else," she said. "But it'd be interesting to see what my reaction is like in general to anything that hurts me now that I feel so secure in myself, and I'm talking outside of romance as well."
Adele had a toxic relationship with alcohol, so she quit drinking a few months after getting divorced. The singer candidly said that alcohol took her dad away from her and that played a part in her difficulties with drinking. "At first, I was probably keeping the alcohol industry alive," Adele said of the first few months after getting divorced. "Once I realised 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 centred."
Adele's father had only ever heard "Hometown Glory" up until last year. Adele reconciled with her father during the last year before he died in April. During the special, she shared that her father felt it was "too painful" to listen to her music due to their strained relationship. "So I forced him to listen, and it's that we both cried," Adele shared. "And then him sort of really understanding my childhood 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." Adele added that she and her father both shared the same favourite songs from her albums.
Her favourite Adele song ever is on 21. In a bonus clip [11] from Adele's interview with Winfrey, the talk show host listed "Someone Like You," "Send My Love," and "River Lea" as her favourite Adele tunes. Adele revealed her favourite is "One and Only," adding that it's "so much fun to sing as well."
Working out helped Adele with her anxiety; it wasn't about weight loss. Adele told Winfrey she suffered from "terrifying anxiety attacks" and soon realised she "didn't have any anxiety when I was out at the gym." Her recent weight loss has become a public discussion, which Adele said she wasn't "shocked or even phased by it" because she was used to objectification of her body ever since the start of her career. Adele's weight loss also stirred up criticism. In response, she told Winfrey, "I was body positive then and I'm body positive now. It's not my job to validate how people feel about their bodies. I feel bad that it's made anyone feel horrible about themselves, but that's not my job."
Adele's open to having more children. "I would like more children. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't because I have Angelo, but yeah, I think so," she told Winfrey.
