Adele is described as a funny, quick, and self-deprecating 22-year-old singer, despite her serious ballads. She has had awkward encounters with celebrities like P Diddy, Sarah Palin, and Harry Redknapp due to her outgoing personality. Her new album 21 is highly anticipated and has already reached number one in some countries based on pre-orders alone.

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EXCLUSIVE: CHARTSTARADELEONCHAOSOFHERLIFEOFFSTAGE
74 2731
By GORDON SMART
SHOWBIZ EDITOR
New diet
off today
WHEN your hear Adele
singing her spine-tingling
ballads it conjures up
images of a classy,
elegant, graceful vocalist.
But as one of her close
friends recently remarked:
“Don’t let that fool you — she’s
like a one-woman Carry On
film.”
The chart-topper is a fire-
cracker of a 22-year-old.
She’s funny, quick, outrageous
and self-deprecating. Our conver-
sation is peppered with infectious
Babs Windsor cackling and “Ooh
matron” gags.
This north London girl is great
company — and just happens to
be one of the most talented and
likeable singers in an incredible
crop of great British female solo
artists on the scene right now.
Her exceptional new album, 21,
is due out in a couple of weeks
and she is on course for a clean
sweep of awards, No1s and
plaudits. And deservedly so.
America loved her previous
album 19, which earned her star-
ring slots on big telly shows
including Saturday Night Live.
Singles Chasing Pavements and
Hometown Glory are massive
radio hits around the world.
Adele laughs and says: “I think
I’m like the opposite of a
comedian. Off stage they are
miserable.
“With my records I am serious
and sad but I get it out of me on
my records. I’ve been told some
of my songs make grown men
cry. Then people meet me and it’s
all giggling and laughing. I
suppose it’s healthy.”
Adele leads a fascinating life.
She lives at home with Mum but
travels the world rubbing
shoulders with A-list stars who
queue to meet her.
But her showbiz encounters are
all laugh-out-loud disasters —
including recent toe-curling
awkwardness with rapper P
Diddy, US politician Sarah Palin
and even Harry Redknapp,
manager of Tottenham Hotspur,
the footie team she supports. And
she is determined to introduce
some of the comedy story-telling
into her live shows.
She very nearly killed P Diddy
when she lost control of her golf
buggy rallying around a studio in
Los Angeles.
She admitted: “I was shooting a
video on one of the big American
plots, six hours I was there and I
wasn’t doing anything.
“So I convinced someone to let
me drive a golf buggy. I ran the
battery out by the end of the day.
“P Diddy must have been doing
a fragrance advert or something.
“I was in the buggy with a
mate and I saw him. I meant to
put the brake on and go, ‘Oh,
you’re P Diddy!’ But I hit the
accelerator.
“He had to dive out the
way. As we went past I
was like, ‘You’re P Diddy’.
He just said, ‘Yeah, I
know’. I almost, almost
killed him.”
Her introduction to Sarah Palin
would have made for great fly-on-
the-wall TV.
She mistook the Republican for
comedian Tina Fey, who does a
regular sketch about the Right-
wing former governor of Alaska
on Saturday Night Live.
She said: “The night before I
was on Saturday Night Live I’d
had dinner with my label and
they were all on their
BlackBerrys.
“I thought it was pretty rude
but it was because it had just
been announced that Sarah Palin
would be on the show and the
biggest audience of the year was
expected. None of them would
tell me because I get such bad
stage fright.
“I knew that Tina Fey was
going to be on the show too and
when I saw Sarah Palin I thought
it was Tina. I was going ‘Tina,
Tina!’ then quoting lines from the
movie Mean Girls, because she
wrote it. The security guard had
to barge me out the way thinking
I was some f****** freak.
“Sarah Palin wanted to come in
and meet us but all my entou-
rage are gay so they were
saying, ‘She’s not com-
ing in or we’re not
doing your face!’ I saw her in the
lobby, because you all go on to
say your goodbyes. Everyone
came there, Mark Wahlberg, Alec
Baldwin, it was so amazing. I
nearly melted. It was an out-of-
body experience meeting them.
“I wanted to wear an Obama
badge during my performance but
I wasn’t allowed to. I don’t really
get involved in politics but I
thought it would be funny.
“But I had the Obama badge
on to do the goodbyes and
Palin comes over and
she’s looking at my
chest, at the Obama
badge, and said,
‘We’re all big fans
of you in my
dressing room’.
It was so
weird.” It’s
just as well Adele smokes,
otherwise she might forget to
pause for breath.
Her recent disasters include a
New Year nightmare. She fell
down a hill at the bells in heels
and a designer Moschino outfit
and got up covered in dog dirt.
She ended up tucked up in
bed by 1.30am on New
Year’s Eve, even though
she had planned to be out
“for three days”.
And don’t be fooled by the
designer outfit. She’s not flash —
quite the opposite.
Turning up for our interview in
pyjamas, she said: “One of my
mates asked me for a watch
recently. I was like, ‘Are you
f****** joking me? You get a
Jamie’s 30-minute Meals cookbook
like anyone else’.
“I share my money with all my
friends and family. I was happy
when I didn’t have any money
and I’d be happy if I didn’t
again. I’ve made a good, nice
amount. I mean, I couldn’t not
work. I bought my mum an Audi,
secondhand of course, because it
loses value as soon you drive it off
the forecourt!
“Then I got a dog and that’s it.
I do have a bit of a fetish for
handbags but that can be any-
thing from a Primark handbag to
a Chanel handbag, I just love
handbags. From Primark £2, to
£2,000 for a Chanel, it varies.
“I don’t really accept much in
the way of freebies. I accept
small things like products or
whatever, but not big things.
“I saved for three years for my
first Burberry bag. Then I bought
it and as soon as I had the
money to go out and buy any
Burberry bag I wanted they
started offering them to me for
free. I don’t think that’s very
fair.”
Adele’s album is out on January
24. It is in the iTunes Top 30 on
pre-orders alone and has gone to
No1 in Germany, Italy and
Holland already.
It is produced by two of the
biggest names in music — Rick
Rubin, who has worked with
Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili
Peppers, Jay-Z and Metallica, and
Brit Paul Epworth, who played
his part in the successes of
Plan B, Florence And The
Machine and Cee Lo Green.
Once the cheques start rolling
in from this one, Adele might just
be in a position to buy her own
Burberry factory.
And you’d struggle to find
anyone who has met her who
would begrudge her the success,
wealth or adulation.
g.smart@the-sun.co.uk
Pictures: DAVE HOGAN
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TWO thirds of British
women will quit their
New Year diets today —
and be tucking into
calorie-packed meals by
7pm, a survey claims.
A quarter vow to
restart the diet tomorrow
but most have no inten-
tion of resuming it.
Bland food, busy life-
styles and a lack of moti-
vation were blamed most
in a weight loss firm’s
poll of 1,000 women.
An expert said: “It
shows the sheer difficulty
of adhering to a diet.”
MANCKY DOODLE
The New York Times
has named Manchester as
one of the world’s Top
20 “must-see” places.
ADELE reckons she frightened the life out
of Spurs manager Harry Redknapp when
she bumped into the team recently.
She explained: “I’m not a fake
Tottenham girl, I was born there.
“The Spurs team were all in my
hotel in Liverpool the other day,
they were playing Everton. I was
well excited, which I didn’t exactly
hide when I clocked them.
“I saw Harry Redknapp. He looked
at me like as if to go, ‘Oh God’. He
didn’t say anything.
Strip
“I didn’t have my make-up on and he had
no idea who I was. He just gave me a dirty
look as if to say, ‘Can you please not cause
a scene – please, just go away’!
“I was so excited. I am a real Spurs fan
and let me tell you, this Beckham business
is exciting. I’ve got a Spurs strip with
Duchess 19 on the back, because
everyone at work calls me Duchess,
after Peggy Mitchell in East-
Enders. I was trying to
force Hometown Glory
on them as the team
tune too.
“I do love Aaron
Lennon. My dog was almost
called Aaron Lennon
because he’s got little legs.”
By GORDON
SMART
Showbusiness Editor
YAP, CACKLE AND POP
. . . cheery Adele has had
odd run-ins with, from left,
P Diddy, Sarah Palin and
Harry Redknapp. Left, the
classy singer in action
36 Thursday, January 13, 2011 Thursday, January 13, 2011 37