Tragic Details About Adele's Life

The following article contains mentions of alcoholism and mental health issues.

The tears shed over Adele's music could fill an ocean. The singer has been a hallmark of the music industry since 2008, when she released her debut album "19." Her chart-topping songs, like "Make You Feel My Love" and "Rolling in the Deep," have not only been heart-wrenching personal admissions of her trauma, but they've cemented her as the best-selling British female artist of the 21st century, which means Adele's listeners don't cry for nothing. "I definitely feel like when my life is spiraling out of control I want to be in the studio because no one can get me," she told British Vogue in 2021.

Adele dominates the tragic love song genre; it's unsurprising when you hear her background. Adele has faced many trials that go beyond her painful lyrics. From growing up without a father to struggling with postpartum depression after becoming a mother, the sensational artist emerged from a harrowing background only to dominate the pop industry — Adele's net worth is a testament to her success. Thus, looking back at the tragic details of her life makes her achievements even more impressive.

As a child, Adele was raised by a single mother in North London after her father, Mark Evans, abandoned them. In a 2011 interview with The Sun, Evans confessed, "I was a rotten father at a time when she really needed me. I was putting away two liters of vodka and seven or eight pints of Stella every day." Adele made her bitter feelings about Evans known during an interview with Vogue in 2012, saying, "I was actually ready to start trying to have a relationship with him." However, her father spoke with the press about her, and it changed everything. "He's f***ing blown it. He will never hear from me again," Adele remarked. "If I ever see him I will spit in his face."

But in 2021, Adele opened up about her estranged father again in an interview with Oprah Winfrey for CBS' "Adele One Night Only" special (via YouTube). "As I got older, I definitely understood that it was the alcohol, it wasn't a choice that he was necessarily making himself," she said.

Adele's childhood was fraught with devastation. Years after her father left, the "Easy on Me" hitmaker lost her grandfather. "I loved him so much, more than the world," Adele told i-D magazine in 2015. Adele was just 10 years old when her grandfather died, but from that point on, she vowed to steer her career in a much different path than music. Instead, she was set on becoming a heart surgeon. "I wanted to fix people's hearts," she said.

Adele's adulthood didn't bring her to medical school, but she is healing wounds in a different way. After releasing her debut album "19," the singer first played "Someone Like You" for her mother, who saw her daughter's talents as remarkable as if she were a doctor. "'You are a surgeon,'" Adele recalled her mom saying. "'You're fixing people's hearts.'" The musician has continued to write heartbreakingly relatable songs, but it's intriguing to think of one of music's biggest pop stars working in a hospital, never a star. Adele believes, "It's all a bit 'Sliding Doors' really, innit?"

Those who deal with back pain know how difficult it can be to manage. This is especially true when you're expected to perform on stage night after night, like Adele. Sadly, the "Skyfall" singer has had chronic back issues since she was just a teenager. "I slipped my first disc when I was 15 from sneezing," she told The Face in 2021. And that wasn't the last time. "I was in bed and I sneezed and my fifth one flew out," Adele recalled. "In January, I slipped my sixth one, my L6."

Fortunately, the singer has found a way to slightly improve her situation by building strength in her core. "Where I got my tummy strong, down at the bottom, which I never had before, my back don't play up as much." But Adele still has flare ups at times, including backstage at her Las Vegas residency in August 2023, where she revealed to concertgoers that she'd collapsed. "They picked my whole body up off the floor," she told her fans (via The Sun), explaining that she was experiencing sciatic pain and would have to sit down for a portion of the show.

Adele's relationship with alcohol is admittedly complicated. During an interview with Vogue in 2021, Adele admitted to drinking more heavily during the COVID-19 pandemic. She and the Vogue journalist bonded over their shared lockdown experience, with the singer stating, "It got earlier and earlier, the drinking." She later divulged, "My first emergency run at the grocery store was for Whispering Angel and ketchup," referring to her go-to rosé wine. "Whispering Angel turned me into a barking dog. It did not make me whisper," Adele noted.

But it turns out the pandemic wasn't the only time Adele struggled with alcohol. At one of her Las Vegas residency shows in October 2023, Adele told the crowd, "I stopped drinking maybe like three and a half months ago" (via The Guardian). She admitted that it was "boring" being sober, but added, "I was literally borderline alcoholic for quite a lot of my 20s, but I miss it so much." However, just a few weeks later, Adele revealed that she'd lifted her self-imposed sobriety to celebrate taking a break from performing.

Protecting your vocal cords is crucial for singers like Adele. However, she sadly experienced a frightening incident back in 2011 that threatened the future of her singing career. On CBS' "60 Minutes" in 2012, she explained that her voice "went" while performing live on the radio. "Like someone put a curtain over my throat. ... It felt like something popped in my throat," Adele revealed.

She was diagnosed with a polyp on her vocal cord, which had hemorrhaged and required surgery to correct. Adele underwent laser surgery to fix the injury, but there was still concern over the future of her vocal health. "If I decide to go on a 200-date world tour, it would happen again," she said.

Tragically, the truth about Adele's damaged voice is that it seems to be creating recurring issues for the "Remedy" singer. Her suspicions about the injury returning was right on the money, as she again suffered a setback toward the end of her world tour in June 2017. Adele wrote an Instagram post apologizing to her fans, as she revealed that she would have to cancel the remaining dates due to problems with her voice. "I've struggled vocally both nights," Adele wrote. "I had to push a lot harder than I normally do. I felt like I constantly had to clear my throat." Then, in February 2024, she again had to go on vocal rest amidst her Las Vegas residency.

Heartbreak ballads go hand-in-hand with the end of relationships, and Adele has a long dating history that coincides with her phenomenal music career. Her teenage fling is even considered the inspiration for "21." In 2012, Heatworld magazine reported that "Mr. 21" was Alex Sturrock, a 31-year-old photographer who dated Adele — 10 years his junior — between the summer of 2008 and the spring of 2009. "It was an intense period for them," a source close to Sturrock told the outlet. "They met through mutual friends while Alex was working for Vice and hit it off straight away." The insider said that the pair were inseparable, and that Sturrock was even present when Adele won her first Grammy.

Even so, their relationship was complicated. Sturrock was allegedly hesitant to ever call Adele his girlfriend. Their mutual split felt more mature than any of her other breakups, but months after they called it quits, Adele was reeling over the news that he was engaged to someone else, per the Daily Mail. It was a turning point and an incentive to focus on her music. While writing "21," however, she turned to alcohol. "I was completely off my face writing that album, and a drunk tongue is an honest one," Adele told Vanity Fair in 2016. "I would drink two bottles of wine, and I would chain-smoke. Then I'd write the lyrics down and the next morning think, f***, that's quite good." Her anguish led to iconic songs like "Turning Tables," "Rolling in the Deep," and "Someone Like You."

Adele has been candid about her struggles with mental health. She was in a state of intense grief after losing her grandfather, so much so that it prompted her mother to seek her clinical help. After becoming a mother herself, Adele struggled with postpartum depression. In a 2021 interview with The Face, Adele revealed her sense of losing herself after giving birth. "My friends, my hobbies, the things I like doing without a baby, are things that make me who I am. And I didn't really have access to that for a while."

Adele resorted to one tactic that helped relieve some of her postpartum depression. She told Vanity Fair that talking to other mothers reinforced that she wasn't alone. "One day, I said to a friend, 'I f***in' hate this, and she burst into tears and said, 'I f***in' hate this, too,'" she recalled. "And it was done. It lifted." Adele also admitted that as her son, Angelo, got older, it was easier to make time for herself. Ultimately, the new mom decided she would dedicate an afternoon a week to herself, and while Adele admitted that she sometimes feels guilty about it, she knows she's in a better head space for her son after a little alone time.

Adele isn't exactly known for soaking up the limelight; the "Rolling in the Deep" crooner has been known to disappear from the public eye for years at a time. So, it comes as no surprise that she values her son Angelo's privacy even more. Sadly, this isn't always easy, given her celebrity status, and she's among the many famous moms (like Blake Lively and Gigi Hadid) who have had to push back against the unauthorized publication of her child's photos.

In June and November 2013, photos were taken of Adele and Simon Konecki's son Angelo by paparazzi and published without their consent — but the couple wasn't going to let this go without a fight. In July of the following year, they successfully sued the photo agency for damages. Adele's lawyer Jenny Afia told the High Court in London at the time, "It is a matter of profound sadness that many of his milestone moments, such as his first family outing and his first trip to playgroup, were photographed and published worldwide expressly against his family's wishes" (via BBC). 

It was argued that, because the photos were taken during a family outing rather than a public event, they were considered "a clear infringement of [Angelo's] right to privacy." It was determined that Adele and Konecki would hold the five-figure winnings for their son in a trust.

It was assumed that Adele had finally found the one when she began dating Simon Konecki in 2012. That same year, the couple announced they were expecting their child, Angelo. For seven years, their relationship progressed lovingly, with the couple getting married in 2018. However, by 2019, it was reported that Adele and Konecki had split.

Opening up about her divorce to Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Adele said it was a magazine questionnaire that gave her the revelation about her marriage. The question was: "What's something no one would ever know about you?" Her response: "I was like, 'I'm really not happy. I'm not living, I'm just plodding along.'" By 2021, the couple finalized their divorce.

It had been six years since Adele released "25," so it was only a matter of time before she was back in the studio. Her album "30" is widely considered to be a response to her breakup with Konecki. The single "Easy On Me," released before the rest of the album, is a tear-jerking glimpse into her post-divorce life, all while raising Angelo. "My son has had a lot of questions," she told British Vogue in 2021. "I just felt like I wanted to explain to him, through this record, when he's in his 20s or 30s, who I am and why I voluntarily chose to dismantle his entire life in the pursuit of my own happiness. It made him really unhappy sometimes. And that's a real wound for me that I don't know if I'll ever be able to heal." Fortunately, Adele and her ex-husband Konecki remain on good terms and have continued co-parenting their son as friends over the years.

Adele has been open about her struggles with mental health over the years, which began at age 10 when her grandfather died. "I'm very available to depression. I can slip in and out of it quite easily," she told Vanity Fair. Thankfully, Adele explained that she hasn't dealt with these feelings since her experience with postpartum depression, but her struggle with anxiety hit an all time high after her divorce.

Speaking with Oprah Winfrey during the media mogul's "One Night Only" special in 2021, Adele said, "I had the most terrifying anxiety attacks after I left my marriage." The singer elaborated, "They paralyzed me completely and made me so confused because I wouldn't be able to have any control over my body." Eventually, Adele found that exercising with her personal trainer brought her out of the anxious head space. Working out was less about losing weight for the singer than it was a means of escaping her racing mind and she found solace in knowing what her routine would look like day to day.

With the rise of social media usage, it's become pretty easy to post things on a whim without giving them a second thought. No star has been safe from the backlash that comes with showcasing culturally insensitive looks, from Miley Cyrus' bindi to Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner's braids. While Adele has had a stunning transformation over the years, one particular hairstyle she displayed back in 2020 is probably best left in the past.

In the "Rumour Has It" singer's Instagram post, she wore a bikini top of the Jamaican flag and Bantu knots at an outdoor party, alongside the caption, "Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London." The annual festival celebrating Caribbean culture was cancelled that year due to the pandemic, so Adele shared what was intended by a lighthearted and silly post in tribute. However, commenters were swift in calling her out for cultural appropriation, as Bantu knots are a traditional African hairstyle.

The crooner explained why she never took the post down when interviewed by British Vogue in 2021, saying, "I could see comments being like, 'The nerve to not take it down,' which I totally get. But if I take it down, it's me acting like it never happened." That said, it's clear Adele learned her lesson. "I totally get why people felt like it was appropriating," she said. "I didn't read the f**king room."

After years of avoiding the scars her father's abandonment left on her, Adele eventually confronted her trauma. Speaking with Vogue in 2021, she revealed that her therapist suggested she envision speaking with her 7 year old self. "I needed to go sit with her and really address how I felt when I was growing up," Adele explained. "And issues with my dad." The crooner had long struggled in romantic relationships because of how her father, Mark Evans, had treated her when she was younger. "My relationship with men in general, my entire life, has always been: You're going to hurt me, so I'll hurt you first," Adele said.

Tragically, Evans died in May 2021 from cancer. While this was an understandably difficult time for Adele, she had fortunately managed to patch things up with him before his death. As difficult as her divorce was for her, it served as a huge turning point as she gained some important perspective that allowed her to make peace with Evans. 

The "Water Under the Bridge" singer told British Vogue five months after her father's death, "We actually got our peace." Adele went on to explain that she even played her album over Zoom for Evans a week before he died. "One thing that definitely happened in my divorce was that it humanized my parents for me. Big time," she remarked. "And in that I found the peace to forgive him."

After playing sold out shows nearly every weekend for two years, Adele's Las Vegas residency came to an end in November 2024. "This really is the beginning of the end," the "Hometown Glory" singer told her audience at her final performance (via Hello!). "There are no other f***ing shows. I'm not going to be like, 'Surprise!' This is the end." Her time at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace got off to a rocky start, facing an initial delay amidst a COVID-19 breakout, plus Adele had to pause her performances due to health issues for a time. However, she pulled off one of the most profitable residencies in history, earning more than $1.75 million per night.

When it all came to an end, Adele told her fans she was "genuinely sad," as she's experienced tremendous growth throughout her time in Las Vegas. "They say that if you want things and you are looking for things in life, you have to pay the universe, and then it pays you back tenfold," the singer remarked. "My life is a thousand times better. My life, not my career, not my music. I'm talking about my actual life." In terms of what's next for Adele, she previously revealed that she would be taking a well-deserved break from performing for a while. So if you didn't catch her during her residency, it may unfortunately be a while until you get another opportunity to see her sing live.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

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