As soon as Adele began to lose weight you couldn’t utter the singer's name without her body being analysed. Whether she shared an Instagram post supporting England in the Euros, practising for her tour, or celebrating her birthday, the comments nearly always related to her figure.
In a new interview Adele has addressed that many of her fans felt ‘betrayed’ when she gradually lost seven stone over two years, with many making allegations that she’d sold out and stopped supporting other body types by changing her appearance.
‘Some of the ones I saw were young, they were like 15,’ she told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. ‘There were some other people that felt very betrayed by me,’ she continued. ‘Like, “Oh, she is giving into the pressure of it”.
‘I felt terrible for some people that felt other people’s comments meant they weren’t looking good or that they weren’t beautiful,’ Adele said, before explaining that exercise was something private she did for her own wellbeing – as is very obviously her right to do so.
‘[W]hen I'm crying my heart out with anxiety and needing a distraction and stuff like that…100 per cent [exercise] gave me focus. It gave me somewhere to get rid of my energy — good or bad — and it made me feel like I was getting stronger mentally by getting stronger physically.'
Notably, Adele has never revealed how she lost the weight: ‘Most other people would have a DVD out by now,’ she pointed out. ‘I did it on the quiet…for myself.’ And despite being one of the biggest stars on the globe, Adele doesn’t owe anybody and explanation or an apology for her transformation.
As she told Oprah last November: ‘I’m too big, I’m too small, I’m hot or I’m not… I never looked up to anyone because of their weight. I’m body positive then and I’m body positive now. But it’s not my job to validate how people feel about their bodies. 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.’