What You Don't Know About Adele

With her once-in-a-generation voice, Adele has ruled the music industry since her debut album "19" dropped in 2008. Chatting with Westword the following year, the young Adele, who was barely past her teenage years, predicted her voice would continue to grow and blossom. "I think I'll still be coming into my own when I'm thirty," she said. With iconic songs like "Rolling in the Deep," "Hello," and "Someone Like You," Adele's subsequent albums further showed off her inimitable voice and all-ages appeal. Oh, and let us not forget all of the records she's shattered. In 2015, her album "25" sold an astounding 3.38 million copies in just its first week, per Billboard. Then, the 2021 single "Easy On Me" on her fourth album became Spotify's most-streamed song in a single day, the company tweeted. It was the lead single to the album titled "30," proving her own prediction right of continued growth as an artist.

Whether it's getting Spotify to change its own rules or picking up Grammy after Grammy, Adele's influence is impressive. But behind all the success is an artist with a complicated past. For example, her songs about heartbreak are often based on real-life experiences. Adele has also dealt with family issues and struggled in the spotlight more than once. Fortunately, her booming voice has risen above it all to provide fans with comforting music.

This is what you don't know about Adele.

"I've always been obsessed with voices since I was 4 years old," Adele revealed to Express Night Out in 2009. One of the voices that caught her ear was the voice that belonged to legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald — so much so that, as The Guardian wrote in 2008, Adele learned to "impersonate" Fitzgerald. The "Set Fire to the Rain" vocalist's musical vocabulary continued to blossom, as her friends "introduced her to R&B via Destiny's Child, Faith Evans and P Diddy." Her mother helped expand her musical horizons, too. "Even when I was 10 and 11, I knew my mom had brilliant taste in music — I just wasn't ready to embrace it," she told Out. "Now they're my favorite artists."

As Adele recalled in the aforementioned Out interview, Lauryn Hill's masterpiece "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" really resonated with her as a young girl — even though the lyrical content went right over her head. Another formative album was "Frank" by the late Amy Winehouse, which came out in 2008. As Adele told i-D, that record inspired her to try her hand at songwriting. "If it wasn't for Amy and 'Frank,' one hundred per cent I wouldn't have picked up a guitar ... this wouldn't have happened," she shared. Luckily, "this" did happen, and her maiden songwriting voyage went rather well. "I was sixteen when I wrote my first song," she said in Westword. "I wrote 'Hometown Glory' when I was sixteen." Talk about hitting a glorious home run.

Early on in her career, Adele was upfront that she wanted her voice to be her defining feature, not looks. "I'd rather weigh a ton and make an amazing album than look like Nicole Richie and do a s*** album. My aim in life is never to be skinny," she told Q Magazine (via NME). In a later interview with Vogue, she said, "Fans are encouraged that I'm not a size 0 — that you don't have to look a certain way to do well." 

After she dropped around 100 pounds in a two-year span, Adele told Oprah Winfrey that her weight loss started because of mental health reasons. "I had the most terrifying anxiety attacks after I left my marriage. They'd paralyze me completely," Adele shared in the 2021 interview. As a result, she found comfort in exercising to feel back in control of her body. Additionally, the regimented schedule of exercising helped keep her in focus when she "had nothing else to do." Adele became so proficient at the gym that she was able to deadlift 170 pounds at her peak, up from her starting weight of 10 pounds on the bar.

The singer also talked about the public's reaction to her physical transformation. "I'm not shocked or even fazed by it because my body has been objectified my entire career," Adele said. "I was body positive then and I'm body positive now."

Adele's dad, Mark Evans, left the family when she was three years old, but as the singer told Vogue, she was open to making up for lost time years later.  "I was actually ready to start trying to have a relationship with him," she said. Well, that all changed when Evans reportedly "sold a story about her to the Sun newspaper." She wished her dad didn't give into the press and the entire scenario put a further distance between the two. "How dare you comment on my life? It makes my blood boil," she said. Adele concluded about her father, "If I ever see him I will spit in his face."

In a statement to the Daily Mail, Adele's father explained his side of the story. "When she sings, it's so beautiful but it brings back too many memories. It's too painful," he admitted (via the Telegraph). After watching Adele take home several Grammy Awards — including Album of the Year — in 2012, Evans said, "There's so much regret on my part — regret that I wasn't a better father to her." He added about his famous daughter, "I let her down badly, and I wish I could turn the clock back and do things differently."

Years later, Evans became ill and as a result, he and Adele began to talk once again. In her sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, Adele shared that they reached a place of forgiveness before he died in May 2021.

In 2012, Adele became a mom to son Angelo. The year before, she released "21," a watershed moment for her career. Balancing life as a singer and life as a mother hasn't always been easy for Adele, as she's struggled with being away from her son while she goes off to do, you know, music superstar things. "[Leaving to film the "Hello" music video] was the most exhausting thing ever, being without my baby," she told i-D.  As far as her experience raising a child, Adele confessed, "It's f***ing hard. I thought it would be easy ... I had no idea." She also admitted that while motherhood has its difficult moments, "It's the greatest thing I ever did." She added, "It used to be that my own world revolved around me, but now it has to revolve around him."

Even with her wonderful voice, Adele said in i-D that she rarely sang lullabies to her kid because anything other than "Row Row Row Your Boat" didn't land. Even as he grew older, Angelo enjoyed the music of other artists besides his mom. In her 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, Adele said her son didn't fully comprehend her star status. Oscars, schmoscars — Angelo's more impressed by the number of fans at a Taylor Swift concert he attended.

Adele began to write songs as a teen and by the time she left her training at the BRIT school, she had three demo songs, per Out. Adele also started to perform live around this time. As detailed by Vogue, Adele's musician friend Jack Peñate convinced her to open for him at the intimate Troubadour venue in London. "I went on first and I was on my own, and the whole room was packed," Adele recalled of her performance. While singing, she remembered, "the whole room was silent, and I saw these random girls just, like, crying." Adele said this was the exact moment that she fell in love with performing live.

Another friend then helped Adele create a Myspace page, one of the original social media networks. The timing couldn't have been better for Adele to upload her performances for the world to hear because Myspace was growing in popularity. As Vogue recounted, Nick Huggett from the XL Recordings label reached out through Myspace, "assuming that she already had a record deal and a manager. When he found out that she had neither, he set her up with manager Jonathan Dickins, and suddenly she had an album deal." Just like that, Adele went from a casual singer to the next big star in music. "I never saw any of it coming. I didn't realize it was going to get so carried with itself," Adele confessed to Vice about her rapid rise to fame.

It's no secret that the lyrical content on Adele's first album "19" was inspired by one of her old boyfriends. After the release of her debut, Adele talked about her ex's reaction to the collection of songs — and it sounds like he didn't take it on the chin. "I've seen him a few times," she told Westword. "He's a bit bitter." Adele said about their failed relationship, "I didn't do anything wrong. It was him!" The singer went on to say that, in this particular case, forgiveness is her call. "And it's all not forgiven!" She also noted the wildly different directions the two of them went after the breakup. "He's working in a phone shop, and I'm sitting in a New York office right now, looking out at Manhattan," she said. "So I'm very happy. I'm very pleased with it."

Adele found love again following the split that spawned "19." However, that relationship was not meant to be either and provided the base for her sophomore album "21." She told Out, "I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not making my relationship with my ex on 21 work, because he's the love of my life." Adele even confessed that she was so enamored with her former "soul mate" that she would have quit music just for him. Though she confessed her ex "made me really weak," she found positives from the relationship. The singer revealed she not only became fearless but also learned what she wanted in future relationships.

As one of the most popular figures in the music industry, Adele can command a room. She also used this influence on multiple occasions to help others. For example, her tour rider requirements for her North American shows supporting "21" specified that there was no such thing as a free ticket, meaning that any guest who showed up at the box office to collect a complimentary ticket would be "asked for a minimum charitable contribution of $20 (in cash)," per The Smoking Gun. Even more, the concert-goer had no "choice to opt out of donating if they plan on attending a show" and the rider clearly stated, "There will be no exception to this rule." The technique worked because the same requirement for the UK and European leg of the tour raised over $13,000 for Sands, her charity of choice. The English charity's mission is to support "anyone affected by the death of a baby and promoting research to reduce the loss of babies' lives."

Adele played a part in several other organizations, like when she performed the Keep a Child Alive Black Ball charity concert, per Borgen Magazine. She also once performed at the Pride London concert in support of equal rights. Adele is reportedly a "longtime supporter of Amnesty International and the nonprofit, MusiCares, which provides a safety net for musicians in need." Additionally, the singer tweeted about the water charity Drop4Drop. Hello from the philanthropic side.