Adele Says She Felt 'Sad' And 'Embarrassed' After Divorce Became Public Knowledge: 'It Devastated Me'

The Easy On Me singer split from Simon Konecki in 2019, with their divorce finalised earlier this year.
Open Image Modal
Adele
CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images

Adele has said she felt “sad” and “embarrassed” after news of her split from husband Simon Konecki became public knowledge. 

The singer and charity boss split in 2019, with the former couple’s divorce eventually being finalised earlier this year.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Adele opened up about the “tsunami of emotions” she felt as a result, particularly after the break-up was made public. 

“It made me really sad,” she told the magazine. “Then having so many people that I don’t know know that I didn’t make that work … it fucking devastated me. I was embarrassed.

“No one made me feel embarrassed, but you feel like you didn’t do a good job.”

Adele said that she suffered “an intense few weeks of bed-bound anxiety” following the split, until the day of her 31st birthday in May 2019.

“I felt quite hopeful,” she said. “It was the first time I felt I’d had a really nice evening and I was OK being in the house and going to bed on my own.

“I was not excited, but I was looking forward to the next day.”

Open Image Modal
Adele and Simon Konecki pictured in 2012
Kevin Mazur via Getty Images

She added that the following day she woke up and “was like, ‘this is going to be really fucking up-and-down’.”

Speaking about distracting herself from the emotional difficulty, Adele said she threw herself “head first” into anything to help soothe her anxiety, including travelling “anywhere where there’s meant to be brilliant energy”.

In an interview with British Vogue earlier this year, Adele revealed that the press had previously got the timeline of her relationship with Simon wrong, stating they didn’t actually get married until 2018, despite referring to him as her husband during an acceptance speech at the Grammys the previous year.

Of the split, Adele said: “It just wasn’t right for me any more. I didn’t want to end up like a lot of other people I knew. I wasn’t miserable miserable, but I would have been miserable had I not put myself first. But, yeah, nothing bad happened or anything like that.”

Adele’s highly anticipated album 30 will arrive on 19 November and is expected to explore the separation and her relationship her and Simon’s eight-year-old son Angelo.