Adele Opened Up to Oprah About Why She Walked Away From Her Marriage to Simon Konecki—Find Out What She Said

Author:
Stefanie Parker
Nov 19, 2021

Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead, and Adele knows that as well as anyone. The 33-year-old, A-list singer shocked fans—and also herself—when she chose to end her marriage to husband Simon Konecki in 2019 and file for divorce, five months after announcing their separation and seven years after welcoming their only child together, now-9-year-old son Angelo.

At the time, the singer's reps said in a statement, "Adele and her partner have separated. They are committed to raising their son together lovingly. As always they ask for privacy. There will be no further comment."

Now, though, Adele has gone much deeper into why she left the marriage, what her relationship with Konecki is like today and how she still feels discomfort and embarrassment about being divorced in a new sitdown with Oprah Winfrey that aired as part of the singer's Adele One Night Only special on Sunday, Nov. 14 on CBS.

"It was just exhausting trying to keep going with it. It’s a process. The process of divorce, the process of begin a single parent, the process of not seeing your child every single day wasn’t really a plan I had when I became a mum," Adele confessed in the special. "The process of arriving for yourself every single day, turning up for yourself every day and still running a home, running a business, so many people know what I’m talking about [and] I felt like not doing it anymore. And also, trying to move forward but with intention, not just trying to get out of it for no reason. My feet hurt walking through all that concrete.”

She also admitted that her divorce left her feeling "so disappointed for my son. I was so disappointed for myself." As she explained, "I've been obsessed with a nuclear family because I never came from one... I take marriage very seriously. It seems like, I don't know, almost like I disrespected it by getting married and divorced so quickly. I’m just embarrassed that I didn’t make my marriage work... I’m still not fully over it; me choosing to dismantle my child’s life for my own makes me very uncomfortable."

While she added that "trying to explain to a 6-year-old that I do love [his dad], I’m just not in love with him, makes no sense to a 6-year-old," she said she also knows that Angelo "sees that I still love his dad. We live across the street from each other." (She's also revealed that "Easy on Me," her first single off her new album 30, is written to Angelo in an attempt to explain the divorce to him.)

She also had nothing but wonderful things to say about Konecki. "I think Simon probably saved my life," she said. "I could've easily gone down some dodgy paths and sort of self-destructions, being so overwhelmed by all of it. He came in and was stable, the most stable person I've ever had in my life up until that point. Even now, I trust him with my life... Him and Angelo, they were angels sent to me. That's how I feel."

When did Adele get married?

Although she'd frequently referred to Konecki, a charity CEO, as “her husband” for years the couple was really only legally hitched in 2018; they then separated in 2019.

“The timeline the press have of my relationship, my marriage, is actually completely wrong,” the 33-year-old told British Vogue in 2021. “We got married when I was 30… and then I left.”

When did Adele get divorced?

Adele's divorce from Konecki wasn't finalized until March 2021. Their separation was first announced in 2019.

Why did Adele get divorced?

“I was just going through the motions and I wasn’t happy,” she told Vogue in 2021. “Neither of us did anything wrong. Neither of us hurt each other or anything like that. It was just: I want my son to see me really love, and be loved. It’s really important to me.”

The divorce was, in a way, a preemptive strike before things got inescapably bad. “It just wasn’t right for me any more. I didn’t want to end up like a lot of other people I knew,” she told British Vogue. “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.”