Adele reflected on becoming a mother during her rapid rise to fame.
The singer gave birth to her son, Angelo, in 2012 as her album 21 gained international popularity and acclaim. Indeed, while she was pregnant, she swept the 2012 Grammys — making her the second woman, after Beyoncé, to win six awards in one night.
The singer gave a speech while being honored at the Hollywood Reporter’s annual Women in Entertainment Gala in Los Angeles on Thursday. In it, she reflected on what it was like learning that she was pregnant during this time.
“It feels like I only just arrived — that's at least how I feel,” she said, denying that she had ever been "calculated" about releasing few albums and "disappearing" for years at a time. “But upon writing this speech and reflecting a little bit and trying to work out what to say, I realized it’s actually been 17 years I’ve been a signed artist, which is kind of crazy.”
"The real reason that I only have four albums, and I don’t think that many people know this, they might know that I have a child and that I’m a mom, but my son is 11 years old. So If you do the math, that means that right at the height of 21 — I can only call it pandemonium 'cause that's how it felt to me: Overnight, it was like I was famous; it was the strangest, most surreal experience of my life till to this day — I fell pregnant," she continued. "To many, that would be, and it was considered, career suicide. However, [I was] always one to go against the grain."
"It was there and then that I chose to reject the scarcity of success and the idea that you have to be constantly relevant to be successful," she continued. "And that perhaps, just maybe, I could be a hit both on and off the stage."
"You'll never guess what: I fucking got away with it," Adele added before thanking “all the sacrifices that women before [her] have made" for her success.
In August, the 35-year-old said that she was ready to become a mother again and had even looked at baby names — so there might be another one on the way soon!
