Adele says she was 'f***ing disappointed' by 'brutal' conversations about her body: 'That hurt my feelings'
When it comes to magazine covers, Adele is indeed rolling in the deep. With her first single in years due to drop next week, the singer is gracing both Vogue's American and British editions, with two separate profiles chronicling her new music, her 2019 divorce from husband Simon Konecki and the transformations she's made in terms of her mental health and, yes, her physical appearance.
The British star tells American Vogue that she's "been on my journey to find my true happiness ever since" splitting from Konecki, with whom she shares 9-year-old son Angelo. Though she calls the split amicable — "I was just going through the motions and I wasn't happy," she says of wanting to leave the marriage — the time surrounding that huge life shift was fraught with anxiety and isolation.
"It was a lot of sound baths," she says of dealing with what the magazine dubs her "Year of Anxiety." "It was a lot of meditation. It was a lot of therapy. And a lot of time spent on my own."
Working out with trainer Gregg Miele at West Hollywood's private Heart & Hustle gym also proved to be therapeutic.
"It became my time, "she says of her gym sessions. "I realized that when I was working out, I didn’t have any anxiety. It was never about losing weight. I thought, If I can make my body physically strong, and I can feel that and see that, then maybe one day I can make my emotions and my mind physically strong.”
According to Miele, Adele got so hooked on how the workouts impacted her overall well-being that she "started doing double sessions."
But the Grammy winner disputes reports that she's done any diets or worked with other trainers who've tried to claim credit for her weight loss.
"No," she tells British Vogue. "Ain't done that. No intermittent fasting. Nothing. If anything I eat more than I used to because I work out so hard."
She also takes umbrage at how her post-divorce weight loss has been portrayed in the media, telling the U.K. magazine that "that whole thing of like, ‘gets revenge body’… Oh my God. Suck my d**k!”
She adds, "It's ridiculous. I think it's that people love to portray a divorced woman as spinning out of control, like, 'Oh she must be crackers. She must've decided she wants to be a ho.' Because what is a woman without a husband? It's bulls***."
Speaking to British Vogue, she stressed the mental health impact of the workouts, saying, "I needed to get addicted to something to get my mind right. It could have been knitting, but it wasn't."
She opened up to both magazines about the response her weight loss — which she joked about during her 2020 hosting stint on Saturday Night Live — has received.
"People are shocked because I didn’t share my ‘journey," she told British Vogue. "They’re used to people documenting everything on Instagram, and most people in my position would get a big deal with a diet brand. I couldn't give a flying f***. I did it for myself and not anyone else. So why would I ever share it? I don’t find it fascinating. It's my body."
It's a body that she's used to being the subject of fixation.
"My body's been objectified my entire career," she told American Vogue. "It's not just now. I understand why it's a shock. I understand why some women especially were hurt. Visually I represented a lot of women. But I'm still the same person."
She admitted that her feelings were hurt by some of the conversations sparked by her weight loss, telling American Vogue that, "The most brutal conversations were being had by other women about my body. I was very f***ing disappointed with that. That hurt my feelings."
Channeling Disney's Belle in a yellow gown on the cover of British Vogue, she summed up her stance thusly: "You don't need to be overweight to be body-positive — you can be any shape or size.”
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