Adele said it was a question in a magazine quiz – what is something no one knows about her – that made her realize her marriage had to end. The singer, who was taking the test with some friends, responded: “I’m really not happy. I’m not living. I’m just plodding along.”
She recalled: “From there, I was like ‘What am I doing? What am I doing it for?’”
Adele split from Simon Konecki in 2018 after two years of marriage and eight years together. “I take marriage very seriously... and it seems like I don't now,” Adele told Oprah Winfrey on Sunday's Adele: One Night Only. "Almost like I disrespected it by getting married and then divorced so quickly. I'm embarrassed because it was so quick.”
She added: “I've been obsessed with a nuclear family my whole life because I never came from one. From a very young age, [I] promised myself that, when I had kids, we'd stay together. And I tried for a really, really long time.”
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The singer admitted she still loves Konecki – even if she’s not “in love” with him – and praised him for “saving” her life when she became famous. “At that time in my life, I was so young and I think I would have got in all of it,” she said. “I could easily gone down some dodgy paths and self-destructed from being so overwhelmed by all of it.
“And he came in and was the most stable person I'd ever had in my life up until that point. Even now I trust him with my life.”
Adele revealed she suffered “terrifying anxiety attacks” after ending her marriage and found refuge in the gym with her personal trainer. “That really contributed towards me getting my mind right,” she said.
The singer brushed off chatter about her weight loss. “My body has been objectified my entire career. I'm either too big or too small; I'm either hot or I'm not,” she said. “But it's not my job to validate how people feel about their bodies. I feel bad that it's made anyone feel horrible about themselves – but that's not my job.
“I'm trying to sort my own life out. I can't add another worry.”
During Adele: One Night Only, she performed outside the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles in front of a star-studded audience that included music artists like Drake, Selena Gomez, Childish Gambino and Lizzo. Adele did her biggest hits as well as four songs off her new album, 30.
Adele tweeted: "The most beautiful venue I’ve ever played. Thank you to everyone who made it possible. To Oprah for allowing me to tell my truth lovingly in a safe space. The whole thing was pretty overwhelming, I’ve seen it twice and cried my eyes out both times. Having been on such a rollercoaster the last few years and then the pandemic, it was hard to imagine being on stage singing again ever. So the fact that I got to and also got to sing my new songs, has me feeling a million things at once!
"It was also the first time my son saw me perform and I’ve never been so nervous in my life!!"
Another special, An Audience With Adele hosted by Alan Carr, airs in the UK this Sunday night.