Adele says she felt like she had no control over her body as she react to comments regarding her weight loss.
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, 33, known as Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. She is one of the world’s best-selling music artists, with sales of over 120 million records.
With her next album scheduled to drop at the end of this week, Adele returned to the stage for a televised concert special that additionally featured a sit-down chat with Oprah Winfrey.
The conversation between Adele and Winfrey aired as part of a two-hour special Adele One Night Only on Sunday (14 November) in the US on CBS. The program also included a concert pre-recorded at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
She spoke candidly about her personal life during the interview, where she discussed everything from her divorce and a new relationship to the public’s ongoing fixation with her body and how she lost 45 kgs.
Adele says: “I’m not shocked or even fazed by it because my body has been objectified my entire career…I’m either too big or too small.
I’m either hot or I’m not. I feel bad if anyone feels horrible about themselves but that’s not my job. I’m trying to sort my own life out. I can’t have another worry,” she added.
She explained that she started working out to deal with the anxiety around her separation from her husband Simon Konecki in 2018, and never intended to lose weight.
She says: “(Working out) was about my anxiety, mainly. I had the most terrifying anxiety attacks after I left my marriage – it made me so confused and made me feel as if I had no control over my body.”
“I noticed how much I trusted my trainer’s presence when I was feeling so lost, but also I didn’t have any anxiety when I was out at the gym. It became my time — me having a plan every day when I had no plans,” she added.
Adele who has a nine-year-old son Angelo with Simon and is now dating sports agent Rich Paul – received criticism for her weight loss from some people, but she insisted she wasn’t “shocked” by the comments as people have always had an opinion on her appearance.
Adele has attributed most of her weight loss to exercise, explaining that she loves lifting weights in the gym and at her strongest was deadlifting 160 pounds, telling her trainers she wanted to win an Olympic medal.
The singer says: “I’m actually an athlete, I’m not even boasting. I’m also a very good boxer, I’ve got a left hook that could kill you. If only at school I hadn’t discovered boys and someone had told me to go and do a bit more PE.”
The singer added, “I never looked up to anyone because of their weight. I was body-positive then and I’m body-positive now. But it’s not my job to validate how people feel about their bodies.”
The singer, who described herself as an athlete and as a skilled boxer, said her weight might fluctuate in the future and that she’s not worried about putting on weight.
The artist previously opened up about fans’ and media outlets’ comments regarding her appearance and weight loss journey in an interview with Vogue for the magazine’s November cover story.
Adele acknowledged: “I understand why some women especially were hurt. Visually I represented a lot of women. But I’m still the same person.”
“And the worst part of the whole thing was that the most brutal conversations were being had by other women about my body. I was very fucking disappointed with that. That hurt my feelings,” she added.
Adele told the magazine that she needed to “get addicted to something to get my mind right”.
She went on, “People have been talking about my body for 12 years. They used to talk about it before I lost weight. But yeah, whatever, I don’t care. You don’t need to be overweight to be body-positive, you can be any shape or size.”