Adele has said she hopes that when her eight-year-old son grows up into an adult, her new album will give him a glimpse into their family’s divorce from her perspective.
She made the disclosure in her first set of interviews in five years, while speaking with both British Vogue and American Vogue about why she dedicated the highly anticipated upcoming fourth studio album to her son.
According to Bustle, Adele divorced her longtime partner Simon Konecki in early 2021 after the pair originally split in 2019. The decision caused their son Angelo to ask “really good, really innocent questions” about their marriage that Adele found herself unable to answer, such as, “‘Why can’t you still live together?’” The 33-year-old added in British Vogue: “I just felt like I wanted to explain to him, through this record, when he’s in his twenties or thirties, who I am and why I voluntarily chose to dismantle his entire life in the pursuit of my own happiness. It made him really unhappy sometimes. And that’s a real wound for me that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to heal.”
The album, according to British Vogue, traverses an “eclectic” range of sounds and emotions that range from heartbreak to self-destruction to self-reflection.
Made in collaboration with close friends including Max Martin, Inflo, Ludwig Göransson, Tobias Jesso Jr., and Greg Kurstin, who previously worked with Adele on her album 25, which won Album of the Year at the 2016 Grammy Awards. According to American Vogue, the songs each feature her original vocals from the demos of the songs so as to not lose the vulnerability and urgency they carry. “I never redo my vocals. Never. Never ever,” she said.
