It was a piece of small-screen magic. Forty minutes of perfectly timed comedic delivery, brimming with honesty and heart and punctuated by a dirty laugh. It was Adele doing her first Instagram Live — arguably the biggest music star in the world appearing make-up free, a little too close to her phone and bemused by the tech.
And what a relief. It has been six years since we’ve seen or heard much from our favourite Tottenham girl (who once when asked by a national newspaper how she felt after her much-lauded, career-defining 2011 Brits performance of Someone Like You, succinctly replied: “Shat myself”).
But since then, we wondered — had she gone a bit too LA? A bit Goop? After all, there’s the obsessively documented weight loss (seven stone) and three-times-per-day exercise regimen, the regular citing of self-help gurus and she lives in a £7.7 million Beverly Hills compound big enough to house an ex-husband.
Then there’s the company she keeps: the millionaire sports agent boyfriend Rich Paul and Hollywood pals such as Jennifer Lawrence, Nicole Richie and Cameron Diaz (“I’ve got some right ’Ollywood friends,” she admits). Was her fiercely guarded privacy and reclusiveness a sign of some new aloofness? Had she, shudder, become too big for her boots? No, Adele is still Adele. Sweary, unfiltered and charming. She can’t change, it’s the key to her universal appeal.
As she releases her first new single in six years — a typically sad ballad called Easy on Me, which this paper calls “sublime” — it’s actually not the break-up music that keeps her fans coming back for more.
It’s the sight of her shrieking at her dogs (“boys, BOYS, I’m on Instagram Live. BOYS”), musing deeply on her go-to crisps (“prawn cocktail Walkers with Worcester sauce on them”) and extolling her lockdown hobbies (“drinking wine, obviously”). It’s her infectious north London lilt, genuine down-to-earthness and warmth.
It was all there on Instagram as she switched between cackling retorts and considered advice on mental health and happiness. She still feels like your best mate, mum and sister rolled into one. Adele hasn’t changed — and you get the feeling she never will.
