Adele
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE (/əˈdɛl/;[3] born 5 May 1988), known mononymously as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter. She is known for her mezzo-soprano vocals and sentimental songwriting. Adele has received numerous accolades including 16 Grammy Awards, 12 Brit Awards (including three for British Album of the Year), an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
For other uses, see Adele (disambiguation).
Adele
- Singer-songwriter
2006–present
1
Vocals
After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006,[4] Adele signed a record deal with XL Recordings. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008 and included the UK top-five singles "Chasing Pavements" and "Make You Feel My Love". 19 has sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK and was named in the top 20 best-selling debut albums of all time in the UK.[5][6] She was honoured with the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Adele released her second studio album, 21, in 2011. It became the world's best-selling album of the 21st century, with sales of over 31 million. 21 holds the record for the top-performing album in US chart history, topping the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks, with the singles "Rolling in the Deep", "Someone like You", and "Set Fire to the Rain" heading charts worldwide, becoming her signature songs. The album received a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. In 2012, Adele released "Skyfall", a soundtrack single for the James Bond film Skyfall, which won her the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Adele's third studio album, 25, was released in 2015, breaking first-week sales records in the UK and US. In the US, it remains the only album to sell over three million copies in a week. 25 earned her five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year. The lead single, "Hello", achieved huge success worldwide. Her fourth studio album, 30, released in 2021, contains the chart-topping and Grammy-winning single "Easy on Me". 25 and 30 became the best-selling albums worldwide, including the US and the UK, in 2015 and 2021, respectively. As of 2023, all of her studio albums, except 19, have topped the yearly best-selling albums chart worldwide in the 21st century.
Adele is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with sales of over 120 million records worldwide. The best-selling female artist of the 21st century in the UK,[7] she was named the best-selling artist of the 2010s in the US and worldwide.[8] Her studio albums 21 and 25 were the top two best-selling albums of the 2010s in the UK and both are listed among the best-selling albums in UK chart history, while in the US both are certified Diamond, the most of any artist who debuted in the 21st century.
Early life and education
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins[9] was born on 5 May 1988 in the Tottenham district of London, to an English mother, Penny Adkins, and a Welsh father, Marc Evans.[10] After Evans left when Adele was 2, she was brought up by her mother.[11][12] She began singing at age 4 and asserts that she became obsessed with voices.[13][14] In 1997, 9-year-old Adele and her mother, who by then had found work as a furniture maker and an adult-learning activities organiser, relocated to Brighton on the south coast of England.[15]
In 1999, Adele and her mother moved back to London; first to Brixton, then to the neighbouring district of West Norwood in south London, which is the subject of her first song "Hometown Glory".[16] Adele spent much of her youth in Brockwell Park where she would play the guitar and sing to friends, which she recalled in her 2015 song "Million Years Ago". She stated, "It has quite monumental moments of my life that I've spent there, and I drove past it [in 2015] and I just literally burst into tears. I really missed it."[17] Adele graduated from the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon in May 2006,[18] where she was a classmate of Leona Lewis and Jessie J.[9][19] Adele credits the school with nurturing her talent[20] even though, at the time, she was more interested in going into artists and repertoire (A&R) and hoped to launch other people's careers.[9]
Personal life
In 2011, Adele began a relationship with charity entrepreneur Simon Konecki.[265] Their son was born in 2012.[266] On the topic of becoming a parent, Adele said she "felt like I was truly living. I had a purpose, where before I didn't".[267] Adele and Konecki brought a privacy case against a UK-based photo agency that published intrusive paparazzi images of their son taken during family outings in 2013.[268] Lawyers working on their behalf accepted damages from the company in July 2014.[269] Adele has also opened up about suffering from postnatal depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.[270][271]
In early 2017, tabloids started speculating that Adele and Konecki had secretly married when they were spotted wearing matching rings on their ring fingers.[272] During her acceptance speech at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Adele seemed to have confirmed these reports by referring to Konecki as "my husband" when thanking him.[273] She repeated this in March 2017, telling the audience at a concert in Brisbane, Australia, "I'm married now".[274] However, in a 2021 interview with British Vogue, she revealed that they actually married in 2018, and separated the same year.[275] During this time, Adele became a stay-at-home mother.[276] In April 2019, Adele's representatives confirmed the separation via Associated Press, and affirmed that she and Konecki would continue to raise their son together.[277][278] On 13 September 2019, Adele filed for divorce from Konecki, with it being finalised on 4 March 2021.[279][280] In 2021, Adele entered into a relationship with American sports agent Rich Paul.[281]
In 2015, Adele said, "I'm a feminist, I believe that everyone should be treated the same, including race and sexuality".[243] Supportive of the LGBT community, on 12 June 2016, an emotional Adele dedicated her show in Antwerp, Belgium, to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States, earlier that day, adding, "The LGBTQ community, they're like my soul mates since I was really young, so I'm very moved by it."[282][283]
In April 2018, it was widely reported that Adele had become an ordained minister in order to officiate at close friend comedian Alan Carr's wedding to Paul Drayton, something which Adele herself subsequently confirmed. The wedding, held in January 2018, took place in the garden of her house in Los Angeles, California.[284]
On 14 October 2023, during a concert of her Weekends with Adele residency, the singer revealed that she had suffered from "borderline alcoholism" since her 20s, and that she had been sober for three months.[285]
Politics
Adele is a supporter of the Labour Party, saying in 2011 that she was a "Labour girl through and through", and in the same interview was critical of the Conservative Party.[286] Despite this declared political alignment, Adele received backlash for her comments on paying taxes during a 2011 interview with Q magazine. She said, "I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more, doing what I do, I went to state school, I'm mortified to have to pay 50 percent! Trains are always late, most state schools are shit and I've gotta give you like four million quid, are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from 19 I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire."[287][288]
Wealth
In 2012, Adele topped the List of Richest Young Musicians under 30 in the UK, included on the Sunday Times Rich List.[289] In July 2012, she was listed at number six in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid celebrities under the age of 30, having earned £23 million between May 2011 and May 2012.[290] For six consecutive years, from 2013 to 2018, Adele topped the List of Richest Young Musicians under 30 in the UK and Ireland as part of the Sunday Times' annual Rich List.[291] In 2015, Adele said she declined all sorts of lucrative endorsement offers out of personal choice.[292] In 2015, she reported paying £4 million tax in the UK.[293] In July 2016, Adele was ranked number nine on the Forbes list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in the world.[294] In November 2016 and November 2017, she was in second place on the Forbes list of the world's highest-paid women in music, earning US$80.5 million and $69 million, respectively.[295] The Sunday Times Rich List valued her wealth at £125 million in 2017, and she was ranked the 19th UK's richest musician overall whilst being the only woman in the top 20.[296] Adele owns and operates two companies, Melted Stone Ltd and Melted Stone Publishing.[297] In 2017, she earned $11.2 million in royalties from record sales, after taxes, according to official documents from her companies, without any new album release at the time, and whilst spending her time off.[298] On the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List, Adele was valued at £150 million (US$180.5 million) as the 22nd-richest musician in the UK despite not having toured since 2017.[299]
In 2012, Adele and then-partner Konecki purchased a $3.4 million Art Deco villa in Portslade, on the outskirts of Brighton and Hove, which she sold for $3.7 million in 2016. That same year, she bought two houses built side-by-side in Kensington for $7.7 million and $7.3 million, respectively, with the intention of combining them. Adele also bought a home for her mother in West London for around $817,000.[300] In 2013, she temporarily rented Paul McCartney's 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m2) former mansion for an undisclosed price. In 2015, Adele purchased a $5.2 million Mediterranean-style vacation mansion in Malibu, California, and sold it in 2017 for less than its original purchase price, $4.8 million.[300] She envisioned buying several properties on the same street in a Beverly Hills gated community, beginning with the first home purchased for $9.5 million from Don Mischer in 2016.[301][302] During her Madison Square Garden tour in September 2016, Adele rented NBA player Deron Williams' Tribeca apartment for three weeks at a monthly rent of $60,000.[303][300] In 2017, she and Konecki purchased a $5.3 million Tudor mansion called Ridge Hill Manor, located in the English countryside on the outskirts of East Grinstead.[300] In 2019 and 2021, Adele bought two more Beverly Hills mansions for $10.65 million and $10 million, respectively; the latter was purchased from Nicole Richie and her husband, Joel Madden.[304][305] In February 2022, it was reported she bought Sylvester Stallone's 21,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) former mansion in Beverly Park, Los Angeles, for $58 million.[306][307]
Philanthropy
Adele has performed in numerous charity concerts throughout her career. In 2007 and 2008, she performed at the Little Noise Sessions held at London's Union Chapel, with proceeds from the concerts donated to Mencap which works with people with learning disabilities.[39] In July and November 2008, Adele performed at the Keep a Child Alive Black Ball in London and New York City respectively.[308][309][310] On 17 September 2009, she performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for the VH1 Divas event, a concert to raise money for the Save The Music Foundation charity.[311][312] On 6 December, Adele opened with a 40-minute set at John Mayer's 2nd Annual Holiday Charity Revue held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.[313] In 2011, Adele gave a free concert for Pride London, a registered charity which arranges LGBT events in London.[314] The same year, Adele took part in the UK charity telethon Comic Relief for Red Nose Day 2011, performing "Someone like You".[315]
Adele has been a major contributor to MusiCares, a charity organisation founded by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for musicians in need. In February 2009, Adele performed at the 2009 MusiCares charity concert in Los Angeles. In 2011 and 2012, Adele donated autographed items for auctions to support MusiCares.[316][317][318] Adele required all backstage visitors to the North American leg of her Adele Live tour to donate a minimum charitable contribution of US$20 for the UK charity SANDS, an organisation dedicated to "supporting anyone affected by the death of a baby and promoting research to reduce the loss of babies' lives".[319]
On 15 June 2017, Adele attended a vigil in west London for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire where, keeping a low profile, she was only spotted by a handful of fans.[320] Four days later she appeared at Chelsea fire station and brought cakes for the firefighters.[321] Station manager Ben King stated "She came in, came up to the mess and had a cup of tea with the watch and then she joined us for the minute's silence."[321] Paying tribute to the victims at her first Wembley show on 28 June, Adele encouraged fans to donate money to help the victims of the blaze rather than waste the money on "overpriced wine".[322]