Thursday, November 18, 2021

Adele opens up to Oprah about divorce and being a single parent

Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey used her interview with Adele to quiz her about the dark lyrics
in her new album Photograph: Joe Pugliese

Adele opens up to Oprah about divorce and being a single parent

London-born singer interviewed in same spot as Harry and Meghan in run-up to release of new album

Jamie Grierson
Mon 15 Nov 2021 00.01 GMT

The thundering juggernaut that is Adele’s marketing campaign for her new album, 30, pulled in at the Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday, where the record-breaking artist opened up to the Queen of America about the struggles of divorce, becoming a “single parent” and juggling her career.

Under the arches of Oprah’s rose garden, Adele discussed the meaning of new songs on her eagerly awaited album, which is set for release on Friday, in a two-hour special that featured a performance from the London-born singer.

In excerpts released before the broadcast on Sunday evening in the US, her first televised conversation about the album and the stories behind it, she explains that many of the songs touch upon the aftermath of her divorce from the charity chief Simon Konecki.

Sitting in the same garden where Oprah interviewed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in March after the couple effectively quit the royal family, the talk-show host quizzed Adele over some of her “dark” lyrics.

In a short preview clip released to CBS This Morning, Oprah reads lyrics back to Adele from the song Hold On, before asking: “What was going on there?”

“I’m such a mess / The harder that I try I regress / I am my own worst enemy / Right now, I truly hate being me,” Oprah recited.

Adele told her host: “My friends always would say ‘hold on’ when I would feel like the lyrics in the verse. But it was just exhausting trying to 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 that I had when I became a mum,” Adele said.

“The process of arriving for yourself every single day, turning up for yourself every single day. And still running a home, running a business so many people know what I’m talking about and I feel like that as well, I juggled those things as well. And I felt like not doing it any more.

“It made my feet hurt, walking through all that concrete.”

The musical performance was filmed at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles before the broadcast.

Adele’s comeback single, Easy On Me, which is taken from 30, was released last month and topped the UK singles chart after being streamed a record-breaking 24m times.

Adele: One Night Only will air on US network CBS on 14 November at 8.30pm eastern standard time (1.30am GMT on 15 November).

A primetime concert filmed at the London Palladium, An Audience with Adele, will be broadcast on ITV a week later on 21 November.

THE GUARDIAN