30 season is nearly upon us, and to stoke further anticipation for Adele’s return after a six-year dry spell, the British singer sat down with Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos for a candid interview about everything from her divorce to dating to the anxiety she had to work her way through while recording her fourth album.
Here are six things we learned from Adele’s RS interview.
Her Son Angelo Appears on 30
Aside from Chris Stapleton joining Adele for a duet version of “Easy on Me” on the deluxe edition, 30 is bereft of features. Well, mostly. “My Little Love” includes voice memos of Angelo asking his mother questions in the wake of her amicable divorce from Simon Konecki. “It was unbearable,” Adele recalls, “and so if I 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.’” Adele says that her nine-year-old has been extremely understanding of the situation: “He’s a Libra, so he is, like, ‘Chill. It’s fine, Mama. Just chill out.’”
She Was Confused By Fan Reactions to Her Divorce
When news of her divorce broke, Adele was surprised – and even hurt for a moment – by fans’ celebratory reactions; Adele Stans had nothing against her ex-husband as a person, but the prospect of new heartbreak music from a singer-songwriter renown for it had people sharing excited memes and jokes. “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?’” she asks. “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.”
Las Vegas Probably Isn’t Happening
Adele isn’t planning a globe-trotting tour for 30 on account on the pandemic: “I don’t want anyone coming to my show scared. And I don’t want to get COVID, either.” Furthermore, she says a Las Vegas residency for 2022 isn’t looking likely “because there’s f–king nothing available.”
She Reconnected With Her Estranged Father Before His Death
Adele’s parents divorced when she was three, and her father’s alcoholism contributed to their estrangement during her adult life. But when his cancer returned, she decided to visit him for an honest conversation; additionally, he was the first person to hear new songs from 30. “I don’t think I understood the true deepness of how I felt about my dad until we spoke,” she said. When he died in May, she “let out one wail and something left. I’ve felt so calm ever since then. It really did set little me free.”
She Met Boyfriend Rich Paul on the Dancefloor
Rich Paul, a 39-year-old sports agent who represents LeBron James, met Adele on the dancefloor at a friend’s birthday party. She describes their relationship as “incredible, openhearted, and [the] easiest” one she’s ever been in.
Why She Became a Gym Rat
“Anything that could soothe my anxiety, I threw myself in headfirst,” Adele explained of her pivot to physical fitness. The gym helped her cope with the anxiety and trepidation triggered by her divorce, and helped her get a new outlook on her body and life: “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,” she mused.
