Her first two albums were titled 19 and 21, named for how old she was when she wrote them. The first one chronicles the rise and fall of her first serious relationship, and the next one tells the story of the next guy she fell in love with, which also didn't end well.
She gets very nervous before shows, and usually doesn't eat before a performance for fear of a reversal. Her other big fear is flying: she says she's convinced she's going to die whenever she gets on a plane.
Adele got a big boost in America when she performed
Chasing Pavements and
Cold Shoulder on the October 18, 2008 episode of
Saturday Night Live that featured Sarah Palin, who was running for Vice President at the time.
Her wiener dachshund named Louis Armstrong was her constant companion during her 2011 tour.
Adele says she's not concerned about her appearance, as she has more important things to worry about. Said the singer: "I don't make music for eyes, I make music for ears."
In an effort to get over her nerves, she created an alter ego named "Sasha Carter," which is a combination of Beyoncé's "Sasha Fierce" and June Carter Cash.
The guy who was the inspiration for most of her 21 is 10 years older than her. They lived together for close to a year at her place in London.
Her influences include Etta James, Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill.
The
21 album was just the second ever to sell over one million digital copies, and in 2011 it surpassed the first: Eminem's
Recovery.
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Suggestion credit:
Bertrand - Paris, France
Adele recorded
the theme tune for the 23rd James Bond movie,
Skyfall. It won Best Original Song at the 85th Academy Awards, the first Bond theme to win an Oscar.
Adele attended The Brit School, the Selhurst college whose alumni number Amy Winehouse, and Leona Lewis. She recalled: "It had free rehearsal rooms and free equipment and I was listing to music all day, every day for years. The music course was really wicked. There was no dancing or anything like that. No jazz hands."
During her second year at The Brit School, Adele's resolve to be a singer was given a little extra boost, when Shingai Shoniwa, the vocalist with The Noisettes, moved in next door. "She's an amazing singer. I used to hear her through the walls," Adele recalled. "I'd go round and we'd jam and stuff like that. Just hearing her and her music really made me want to be a writer and not just sing Destiny's Child songs."
She received fan mail from ex British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His thank you note praised Adele for keeping Britons' spirits up during the global economic crisis, in which he called her "a light at the end of the tunnel."
Adele had three entries in the the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records:
1. She was named the first female to have two singles and two albums simultaneously in the UK Top 5
2. Her 21 LP established a new record for Most Consecutive Weeks with UK #1 album for a solo female with 11 weeks at the top of the charts
3.21 also broke the record for Most Cumulative Weeks for a solo female at UK #1, after it spent a total of 18 weeks at the peak position.
Adele got inspired to pursue a musical career after hearing Amy Winehouse's debut album,
Frank. She immediately grabbed the guitar and began writing. "If it wasn't for Amy and
Frank, one hundred per cent I wouldn't have picked up a guitar, I wouldn't have written
Daydreamer or
Hometown and I wrote
Someone Like You on the guitar too," Adele told
i-D.
"Contrary to reports, me and Amy didn't really know each other, we weren't friends or anything like that. I went to Brit School and she went for a little while," she added. "But a million per cent if I hadn't heard
Frank this wouldn't have happened. I adored her."
Adele was asked during a November 2015 Sirius XM interview what music she listens to in her spare time. "I love Chvrches a lot," she replied, adding: "I love Grimes. I try to listen to music that might uplift me a bit but I don't really connect with it."
Adele continued: "Music for me is all about connection so I mainly listen to Jeff Buckley. I've been like that my entire life. I remember falling out with my best friend when I was seven and listening to Jeff Buckley. My mum was a fan so [1994 Buckley album] Grace has always been around me."
She once wished to perform heart surgery for a living, before deciding a medical career was not for her. "When I was younger I wanted to be a heart surgeon because my grandad died," Adele explained during an interview with Sirius XM radio. "For a few years I put my mind to it that I was going to be a real heart surgeon and then I went to school, got to 13 and I was like, 'Nah, I ain't doing that'. I think that anyone that commits themselves is like a don at that kind of thing. I lost interest in it."
Adele is a huge fan of George Michael and dressed as him for her 27th birthday party in May 2015. "I was my hero," she tweeted. Adele was devastated when Michael died in 2016.
Adele had been smoking an average of 25 cigarettes per day when she lost her voice because of a recurrent vocal cord hemorrhage, and had to cancel tour dates in 2011. After she underwent surgery, Adele gave up smoking as the songstress feared she would eventually die from the habit. "If I'd carried on smoking I'd probably have died from a smoking-related illness, and I think that's really bad," Adele told The Daily Mirror. "If I was dying from lung cancer I would have potentially given it to myself, and that wouldn't be something I'd be proud of."
Adele began dating charity entrepreneur Simon Konecki in the summer of 2011. She had a son by him named Angelo the following year. The couple married in 2017, but Adele filed for divorce two years later.
Apparently many of us have been mispronouncing Adele's name. During a Q&A with fans to celebrate the release of her "
I Drink Wine" music video, the British singer said most fans pronounce her name as "ah-dell," but the correct pronunciation is "uh-dale."
