48 Fun Facts About Adele

In which part of London was Adele born in May 1988?

Tottenham, in north London; her mother Penny raised her alone after her Welsh father left when she was a toddler, and the family later moved to Brighton and then to south London.

What is Adele's surname?

Adkins: her full name is Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, and Evans was her father's surname.

Which girl group did Adele say 'made me what I am today'?

The Spice Girls were such an obsession that she impersonated them at dinner parties, and by eleven her bedroom was 'essentially a Spice Girls shrine'.

Which two singers were Adele's classmates at the BRIT School in Croydon?

Leona Lewis and Jessie J were fellow BRIT School pupils; Adele graduated in May 2006, when she was more interested in working in A&R than in performing.

How did Adele's demo reach her record label?

A friend posted her three-song class-project demo on Myspace; when the label got in touch she suspected a hoax and took a friend along to the meeting.

Which song opens Adele's debut album 19?

'Daydreamer', an acoustic ballad, opens 19, released in January 2008; the twelve-track album closes with 'Hometown Glory'.

'Hometown Glory', the first song Adele ever wrote, is about which south London district?

West Norwood, where she lived as a teenager; she wrote it in ten minutes at 16 after her mother tried to persuade her to leave London for university.

'Hometown Glory' was first released as a limited 7-inch single on whose label?

Jamie T's Pacemaker Recordings pressed just 500 copies in October 2007; Adele was a Jamie T fan, one reason she signed with his manager Jonathan Dickins.

How are Adele's studio albums named?

After her age when she made them: 19, 21, 25 and 30 reflect the age at which she wrote each album; 30 was actually released when she was 33.

'Chasing Pavements' was inspired by an argument in a club with whom?

An older ex-boyfriend: after a row in a club she stormed out and thought 'chasing pavements'; the single peaked at number two in the UK in 2008.

Adele was the first ever winner of which Brit Award, in 2008?

Critics' Choice, an award created for the 2008 Brits; the same year she topped the BBC's Sound of 2008 poll of music critics.

An October 2008 appearance on which US TV show made Adele an overnight sensation in America?

Saturday Night Live, 18 October 2008: Sarah Palin's cameo gave the show its biggest audience in years, and 19 shot to number one on iTunes the next day.

Which Grammy did Adele win in 2009 for her debut album era?

Best New Artist, at the February 2009 Grammys, where she also took Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for 'Chasing Pavements'.

Which American musical styles did Adele start listening to on tour, shaping the sound of 21?

Country and Southern blues: her tour bus driver played them during the North American leg of An Evening with Adele in 2009, and that Nashville-flavoured sound fed into 21.

How many weeks did 21 spend at number one on the US Billboard 200?

24 weeks, non-consecutive, over 2011 and 2012, the longest run since Prince's Purple Rain in 1984-85 and a record for a female solo artist at the time.

Which producer co-wrote 'Rolling in the Deep' with Adele, the day after her break-up?

Paul Epworth, who co-wrote and produced it with Adele the day after her break-up; she called it a 'dark bluesy gospel disco tune', and it won Record and Song of the Year at the 2012 Grammys.

How many weeks did 'Rolling in the Deep' spend at number one on the Billboard Hot 100?

Seven weeks, from May to July 2011; it was her first US number one and Billboard's top single of 2011.

Who co-wrote 'Someone Like You' and plays the piano on the record?

Dan Wilson, the Semisonic frontman of 'Closing Time' fame, co-wrote it and played the piano; the song gave her a second US number one from 21 in September 2011.

A performance at which 2011 event sent 'Someone Like You' to UK number one, up 46 places in a week?

It jumped over Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and became her first UK number one, staying there five weeks.

Which Columbia Records co-president produced several tracks on Adele's 21?

Rick Rubin, then co-president of Columbia, produced tracks including 'Don't You Remember' and the Cure cover 'Lovesong' at his Malibu studio; Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Jim Abbiss and Dan Wilson also worked on the album.

Why did Adele cancel two tours in October 2011?

A vocal cord haemorrhage: Boston surgeon Steven Zeitels removed a benign polyp by laser microsurgery that November, and she returned to the stage at the Grammys three months later.

How many Grammys did 21 win at the 2012 ceremony, tying a record?

Six, including Album of the Year, tying Beyoncé's 2010 record for a female artist in one night, just weeks after her throat surgery; 25 later won five more in 2017.

Which British producer, called the most pop-minded of the 21 team, produced 'Set Fire to the Rain'?

Fraser T Smith co-wrote and produced it; the single became her third US number one in early 2012, and the Live at the Royal Albert Hall version won the 2013 Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance.

Adele's 2012 Bond theme was written for which film?

'Skyfall', released at 0:07 BST on Global James Bond Day, 5 October 2012, fifty years after Dr. No opened.

At the 2012 Brits, Adele's British Album speech was cut short for which band's performance?

Blur. Host James Corden interrupted her speech for 21 so Blur could close the 2012 show; Adele answered with a middle finger aimed, she said, at 'the suits', not the fans.

Which royal presented Adele with her MBE at Buckingham Palace in December 2013?

Prince Charles presented the MBE on 19 December 2013; she had been appointed in that year's Queen's Birthday Honours for services to music.

Which producer co-wrote 'Hello' and 'Easy on Me' with Adele?

Greg Kurstin co-wrote and produced both; on 'Hello' he played bass, guitar, drums, piano and keyboards, and the single became the first to sell a million US downloads in a week.

Which Canadian filmmaker directed the 'Hello' video?

Xavier Dolan shot it in rural Quebec with Tristan Wilds as Adele's ex; it drew 27.7 million views in its first 24 hours, a Vevo record at the time.

How many copies did 25 sell in the US in its first week, a record since sales tracking began in 1991?

3.38 million, the biggest week since Nielsen tracking began in 1991, beating NSYNC's 2.4 million; it topped a million again in its second and fifth weeks, and the UK first week was 800,307.

Which Swedish hitmakers wrote and produced 'Send My Love (To Your New Lover)' with Adele?

Max Martin and Shellback, Sweden's hit-making duo, built the song around a guitar loop with Adele; it became 25's third single in 2016.

Whose rap verse did Adele perform in her January 2016 Carpool Karaoke?

Nicki Minaj: Adele rapped Minaj's verse from Kanye West's 'Monster' word-perfect while driving round London with James Corden, having also sung the Spice Girls' 'Wannabe'.

Adele headlined Glastonbury 2016 on which of the festival's platforms?

The Pyramid Stage, on the Saturday night, 25 June 2016; she had announced the booking from the stage of her own O2 Arena show that March.

At which London venue did Adele cancel her tour's last two shows in 2017 after damaging her vocal cords?

Wembley Stadium, where she had added a third and fourth night after the first two sold out; the finale was meant to be 2 July 2017.

What personal upheaval inspired Adele's 30, her first album in six years after 25?

Her divorce from Simon Konecki, and its impact on her son, shaped 30; they married in 2018, she filed in 2019 and described going to the studio as 'basically running away'.

What did Spotify remove for premium users at Adele's request when 30 was released?

The shuffle button on album pages: Spotify made play-in-order the default for albums after Adele argued 'our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended'.

At which venue was Adele's Las Vegas residency, Weekends with Adele, held?

The Colosseum at Caesars Palace; the January 2022 start was postponed at the last minute over production delays and Covid in her team, and the residency finally opened that November.

Which 2021 TV special, with an Oprah Winfrey interview, won Adele a Primetime Emmy?

Adele One Night Only, the CBS concert-and-interview special with Oprah Winfrey, won the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded), leaving her a Tony short of an EGOT.

What is the name of Adele's son, born in October 2012?

Angelo, born 19 October 2012 to Adele and Simon Konecki; 'Sweetest Devotion' on 25 was written about him, and 'My Little Love' on 30 samples their recorded conversations.

Which single from 30 debuted at number one in both the UK and US?

'Easy on Me', released in October 2021, debuted at number one in both the UK and the US and held the UK top spot for eight weeks.

What is Adele's voice type, though she is often mistaken for a contralto?

Her range spans B2 to C6. Rolling Stone reported that her 2011 throat surgery actually added four notes to the top of her range and left her voice bigger and purer.

Whose 1998 departure from her girl group left the ten-year-old Adele 'heartbroken'?

Geri Halliwell, whose exit from the Spice Girls in May 1998 left the ten-year-old Adele 'heartbroken'; she has called the group the reason she became a singer.

Which Amy Winehouse album does Adele credit with inspiring her to take up the guitar?

Frank pushed Adele to pick up the guitar; without it, she says, she would never have written 'Daydreamer' or 'Hometown Glory', and 'Someone Like You' was also written on guitar.

Which song did Adele perform at the 2016 Grammys when a fallen microphone marred the sound?

'All I Ask': a microphone fell onto the piano strings during her February 2016 Grammys performance, throwing the sound off key; she consoled herself with an In-N-Out burger afterwards.

Adele became an ordained minister to officiate the 2018 wedding of which comedian, in her Los Angeles garden?

Alan Carr married Paul Drayton in the garden of her Los Angeles house in January 2018; she has described the pair as among her closest friends.

What did Adele name the stage alter ego she invented to cope with performance anxiety?

Sasha Carter splices Beyoncé's Sasha Fierce persona with country singer June Carter; she conceived it after a panic attack before meeting Beyoncé, asking herself 'What would Sasha Fierce do?'

From which services was Adele's 25 withheld when it was released in November 2015?

Streaming services: 25 was kept off Spotify and Apple Music until June 2016, seven months after release, which helped drive its record first-week sales.

Adele says Ella Fitzgerald taught her acrobatics, Etta James passion, and who taught her control?

Roberta Flack, whose records taught her control, Adele has said; she discovered Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald CDs as a teenager in the jazz section of her local record shop, drawn by the covers.

To announce her 2017 tour finale, she sang Three Lions and the theme to which BBC football show?

Match of the Day: her October 2016 announcement video had her humming the programme's theme and singing 'Three Lions' to reveal the Wembley Stadium dates for summer 2017.