Adele was honored this week at the Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment brunch. She received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, an award which usually goes to actresses or people deeply involved in Hollywood. While Adele has an Oscar and Emmys, she’s not involved in film or television, really. But she is a leader and she does a lot of charity work. I enjoy the fact that they chose her, honestly. I’m including her speech at the brunch (Adele points out it’s so early, it was breakfast) and here are some highlights from her excellent THR cover profile:
She gets offered musical bio-pics all the time: “I get offered that all the time. I get offered to do biopics of singers, and I think that’s too obvious. And also anyone that’s great enough to have a biopic about them, you’re just setting yourself up for disaster. Then would they want me to sing as myself? Because then it would sound like me, it wouldn’t sound like them. So I wouldn’t do it. But that’s all I’ve been offered, really.
What motherhood brought up for her: “The first thing I think that comes up when you have a kid is it brings up a lot of your own childhood for you. And no matter what your childhood was like — good or bad or whatever — you don’t want your child to have your childhood. My mum was very young when she had me. She was on her own, and I realized all the things I thought she could have done better, that she couldn’t have. So it made me respect my mum more and has given me more patience with her, as her older-woman daughter. It made me see how hard it must’ve been because we had no money…Also, you realize how hard adulting is. So on top of them being your mum, they’re also going through their own sh-t. I struggle not to show my emotions to Angelo with other things I’m going through. And I think that’s OK.
She gets in touch with up-and-coming singers: “I’m not going to say who they are — I see a lot of the girls, up-and-coming singers, I get in touch with them because no one ever did that to me, gave me any advice or any secret nuggets of truth or tricks of how to survive it in any way. So I have them ’round and we have some wine and I talk to them. Even if you’re really close with your team, your team can’t relate to you suddenly being thrust out of your life and thrown onto the public stage. And that saying, “You have your whole life to write your first album and you have six months to write your second.” That pressure was quite strange. And also your hobby becomes your job, which sounds really great, but your relationship with your hobby changes. So I really like supporting the girls. Sometimes I would love to go into management, but I can’t work with talent. I say that as one — we are a nightmare.
Living in LA: “I love it. It’s still sometimes strange, but I like it because I get left alone in L.A., which sounds weird. And for anyone that has never been to L.A., you assume it would be the opposite. But there are so many famous people here that they don’t waste their time. Because if I see I’m being followed, I’ll cancel my day and I’ll drive out to Palm Springs and back…I get really bad seasonal depression, so the weather is good for me here. It is strange sometimes, because I’m very British. Because it’s a bit harder for me to go out nowadays, what I love the most about L.A. is everyone goes to each other’s houses. I like that.
She participated in Angelo’s school: “I’m thriving a bit. Now there are so many things his school does the most, with community vibes, which is fantastic. The kids don’t care. The kids don’t give a flying f-ck who I am. And I get, not insecure, but I get nervous around loads of adults and strangers that I don’t know. And so making food for school events, it’s my dream.”
A sad person: “I think I’m an incredibly sad person, and I think I inherited a lot of sadness, and I think I’m a real empath and I’m a real feeler. And I can’t move on from things very easily. It’s like I’ve got hollow legs, but it’s just filled with things that I think I’m getting over, or I think haven’t affected me. Or things I think I’m not taking on from somebody else, but I am. And I’ve been like that since I was little.
What she says about LA reminded me of the Beckham docuseries, where Victoria was absolutely thrilled when David signed up with the LA Galaxy. She loved moving to LA, she loved everything about it – I think for famous British people, it feels relaxing to be in a town full of much more famous people. As for thinking of herself as a sad person… I like the language that she uses, and it’s not like she’s misdiagnosing herself as a depressive. There’s a difference between “being a sad person” and “being depressed” and I feel like Adele knows that she’s just a moody, sad person who gets very wrapped up in her emotions.
Her speech was hilarious:
Watch @Adele accept the 2023 Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at THR's #WomenInEntertainment gala pic.twitter.com/UbDYu1r7se
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 7, 2023
#WomenInEntertainment cover star Adele says authenticity gives her power: “More than anything, it’s just being yourself…I think there’s no room for negotiations when it comes to what I want to do and how I want to do it. And it’s always been like that" https://t.co/ot9FEtxCvz pic.twitter.com/r5QGHL0jNt
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 7, 2023
.@Adele for @THR’s ‘Women In Entertainment’ issue. pic.twitter.com/r2FCSQBzdv
— Adele Stats (@StatsAdele) December 7, 2023
Cover & tweets courtesy of THR and credit Avalon.red
It’s so interesting to me just how comment it is to hear British celebrities talk about the difference in the press attention here. I feel like every celebrity that moves here talks about this regardless of race, whether they went to public or private schools, regardless of where they grew up in the UK it’s all oh my gosh everyone leaves me alone here. I mean I know we have our own tabloids, and TMZ but it must just be so refreshing that the reporters from the Washington Post, or New York Times aren’t rifling through your garbage and trying to hack your phone.
The British press is so vile. When will it ever stop?
Is there a difference between the “press” and paps? Cos paps are a nightmare in Uk but also all over Europe too. Think the true Princess of Wales in the tunnel in Paris….
This came up in the Robbie Williams documentary on Netflix too. The British press were driving him crazy; he thinks moving to the US (where he is not famous, having not broken the States like he did pretty much everywhere else) probably saved his life and his sanity.
I relate very heavily to her “sad person” analysis. Same, sis. Same.
Adele is always so refreshing.
Ditto. She is so relatable because she is honest. I love that. I relate to her as someone who makes everyone else laugh or feel something deeply (through her songs), but inside is a sad empath who holds onto all of those emotions.
I f*cking love Adele.
Her speech was brilliant, the right amount of scripted vs. spontaneous.
It’s good to hear that she has also, like so many others, managed to leave that mean, envious, self-destructive little island with its hostile press behind.
It’s nice to hear a celeb talk positively about LA. Living here all my life , I love it and it’s not an egoistic town that some celebs portray it to be. LA and LA county are also huge with the 2nd largest population in the country so you get a mix of people. But then many of us here don’t hang out with egotistical people and a lot of us are family oriented. Many who moved to HW are transplants and some can be rude.
Great speech.
That was a really good speech. Entertaining, serious, thoughtful and heartfelt. Tangential, but she really does have the most beautiful and emotive eyes. Those images are stunning.
I wonder whether, if you are in their sights, the press here in the UK are just ruder? Or have that sense of entitlement to get in your way or provoke a reaction or just be sleazy and weird to get a picture that they can sell to the DM.