We don’t get to pick our wake-up calls in life. You don’t know you need a change until that need is right on top of you. Speaking to Oprah during her Adele: One Night Only special, the singer said that she realized she needed to make big life changes while taking a personality test with friends. One of the questions in the magazine quiz was “What’s something that no one would ever know about you?†Her answer? “I’m really not happy. I’m not living, I’m just plodding along,†Adele recalled blurting out to her friends. “They all gasped,†she said. “From there, I was like, What am I doing? What am I doing it for?â€
Adele was hesitant to divorce because she had been so affected by her father walking out on the family when she was young. “From a very young age [I] promised myself that, when I had kids, we’d say together,†she said. “And I tried for a really, really long time.†Adele began to feel like she had disrespected the entire institution of marriage, which prompted her to have anxiety attacks. She and her ex-husband, Simon Konecki, still live near each other in Los Angeles and amicably co-parent their son Angelo. The Griffith Observatory concert that makes up the bulk of One Night Only was Angelo’s first chance to see his mum perform. “It’s the absolute honor of my life, baby, to have you here tonight,†she said from the stage.