Lo, we are once more at the Garden of Oprah. Just as Harry and Meghan were before us, they also spoke their truth before Winfrey’s tree of knowledge.
Do you remember the bonfire of the royal vanities when the Sussexes sat down with their succulent beefs and perhaps some flame-grilled whoppers as a way to showcase their true selves to the world?
Now it was Adele’s turn on the hot coals of the public confessional and, true to form, her gush of proclamations was biblical.
Adele and Oprah Winfrey, the world’s most famous entertainer, met up to discuss how to make the world right.
Adele spoke about her career and weight loss as well as alcohol abuse. She also discussed her recent divorce from Simon Konecki (the father of Angelo, her nine-year old son).
Adele spoke about her career and weight loss as well as alcohol abuse. She also discussed her recent divorce from Simon Konecki (the father of Angelo, her nine-year old son).
‘I want to live, not to survive,’ she told Oprah, a cloying echo of Meghan’s thrive-not-just-survive declaration during her 2019 interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby.
You know what? It makes my old heart happy to see that powerful, successful women are finally reaching their thrive thresholds. Phew.
Oprah’s audience in America is almost a coronation by itself, but Adele One Night Only (CBS) was a television special that made it difficult to determine which one of the two queens was more regal.
Oprah & Adele looked like they were just getting married in matchy-matchy cream trouser suit and had soaring hairdos that approached Marge Simpson-esque proportions.
Oprah was sat in matching cream trousers and Adele had soaring, Marge Simpson-esque hairstyles.
‘I want to live, not to survive,’ Adele told Oprah, a cloying echo of Meghan’s thrive-not-just-survive declaration during her 2019 interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby
While the show did have its moments, the format was awkward. Oprah interviewed clips were mixed with footage from the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, mini-concert for celebs.
Adele’s ex-husband, son and new boyfriend Rich Paul were all in the audience, along with Leonardo DiCaprio in a hoodie and actress Melissa McCarthy, who bawled her eyes out.
The show was also produced by Fulwell 73 television company, Gayle King, and James Corden.
Indeed, in this enmeshed celeb world, so many power players from the Sussexes’ personal Hollywood address book were present, it is hard to believe Harry and Meghan themselves weren’t there, too. Perhaps hiding under a toadstool, asking each other ‘are we thriving yet?’.
Oprah and Adele matched Oprah’s cream-colored clothes to the American superstar’s garden.
The superstar singer Adele recently divorced from her husband Simon Konecki, whom she had a child with
It was definitely a memorable night. The sumptuous ten-song concert was Adele’s first public performance for many years and she did not disappoint.
The elegant updo was a Schiaparelli dress with black crystals and Saturn pendant earrings.
As the sun rose over the Pacific, Adele’s heartbreaking voice echoed through the night sky. Adele was able to claim her title as the most popular singer today, with the Hollywood sign in her back and Los Angeles lights twinkling around her feet.
Although there was an atmosphere of homecoming, I couldn’t have been without Adele’s sweet marriage proposal to two people in the audience.
This hokum aside, the show was beautiful, featuring stunning visuals, including thundering waves beaming onto the observatory walls while she sang Rolling In The Deep. Then, photographs from her childhood in When We Were Young.
She shared her journey of life’s secrets in new and familiar songs, as she walked into the darkened dusk. While Feel My Love is still able to make grown men weep, her next single I Drink Wine shows Adele’s undiminished determination despite her difficulties.
Oprah spoke to her about her father’s alcoholism, how her relationship with him ended, and the realization that you must be strong enough to take care of yourself in this life.
Her relationship with Mark Evans was open and honest. She revealed that Evans had not listened to her music before she gave him tracks from her latest album (30), shortly before his death in April. Then he went back and listened to all her previous albums — 19, 21, 25. ‘And his favourites were all my favourites,’ said Adele.
Adele, a Schiaparelli dress embroidered with black crystals was fashioned. It featured Saturn pendant earrings and an admirable maquillage.
She told Oprah how his ‘withholding of love’ had fractured all her relationships with men since she began dating. And that with his death, the ‘wound’ that she had been trying to heal her whole life — ‘my dad’s absolute lack of presence’ — finally closed.
During the interview she was on her best behaviour and didn’t swear once, which was a miracle.
However, to be honest with you, Adele would tell you that there wasn’t much spontaneity in their planned exchanges.
‘Didn’t your therapist say at one point that you had to sit down with the seven-year-old Adele?’ asked Oprah, something the singer alluded to in a recent interview with Vogue, in which she also revealed that meditation, sound baths and ‘a lot of therapy’ got her through a year of anxiety.
‘Which deep wounds from your past did you have to confront?’ asked Oprah briskly.
This was therapy-speak at times, and sickly-speak at other times. Oprah would read out some Adele lyrics and then say to her: ‘Girl, you can write.’
After her jaw-dropping conversation with Meghan and Harry, Oprah met again in the garden to chat with celebrities.
‘Thank you,’ said Adele politely, instead of saying of course I blimmin’ can, I’ve sold 90 million records, don’t patronise me gurl, I’m from Tottenham.
It was then that you were able to say “Cheers, dears!” and it was onto the booze. Adele said she had ‘stopped drinking because when you are sober you process your feelings much better. I used to keep the entire alcohol industry alive on my own, but it didn’t do me any good’.
This sobriety must be fairly recent, as she also told the November issue of Vogue that ‘lockdown turned me into a seven-nights-a- week drinker’ and that she would go on ‘emergency runs’ to the local shops for bottles of rosé wine and tomato ketchup.
It seems that Adele’s actions are working, no matter what they may be. As everyone agreed, even her therapist, she’s in a very good spot. Her career arc is incredible, from BRIT School graduate to one of the biggest-selling recording artists on the planet, with each unflinching song laying bare her emotional life and what Oprah would call her ‘lived experience’ along the way.
The concert and the interview were to promote 30, which is already being called her ‘divorce album’ and is set to sell many, many millions more.
‘Go easy on me baby, I was still a child,’ she sings in her first big hit from 30. However, is this true?
You might say that Adele was a 30 year-old mother to one, and not a child. For those who still hope our Adele isn’t going to turn into another self-obsessed, whiny Californian, it may already be too late.
During their chat, she also spoke to Oprah of her ‘journey’ and of ‘loving myself’. It is hard to overstate how much America loves Adele.
Her story of triumph over tragedy and her sobriety winning over intemperance was more endearing than ever as the special aired from coast to coast TV.
Adele can sing like an angel, but she never forgets about her roots. On stage and in conversation, she is folksy and forthright and so determinedly ordinary, it’s almost as if she is scared of her own natural majesty; she has to puncture her balloon of magnificence before anyone else does — and sometimes I wish she wouldn’t.
One thing that can be criticized about Adele is her tendency to overdo it with the country dudeness. She was still enjoying a cup of tea in Griffith Park between songs, even in her silky gown splendour.
But what beautiful songs! In the garden of goodness and evil we have to forgive her for all her wrongdoings. For Adele’s songs encompass love, heartbreak, redemption and life lessons, all sourced from somewhere unfathomable within the rolling deep, delivered with a drenching, three-octave emotional punch. How are you? It doesn’t matter what journey Adele may be on.