Save for a little eyebrow makeup, mascara, and some gloss, comeback diva Adele is completely au naturel on the cover of Rolling Stone. Though her glowing complexion is likely due to her genetics (“she looks strikingly young, with a clotted-cream complexion worthy of the cosmetics endorsements she’s turned down,” writes journalist Brian Hiatt), it also could be the healthy, new habits she’s picked up since giving birth to her son Angelo.
In addition to giving up smoking and limiting alcohol to just one drink per week, more or less, she’s also been going to the gym more often, but doesn’t yet have Khloé Kardashian-levels of dedication. “I’m not, like, skipping to the fucking gym. I don’t enjoy it. I do like doing weights. I don’t like looking in the mirror,” she says.
Like Khloé, however, she maintains that she does her physical regimen for herself and for her family, and not to be a size zero. She’s perfectly happy with her size, and always will be. “Would I show my body off if I was thinner? Probably not, because my body is mine. But sometimes I’m curious to know if I would have been as successful if I wasn’t plus-size. I think I remind everyone of themselves. Not saying everyone is my size, but it’s relatable because I’m not perfect, and I think a lot of people are portrayed as perfect, unreachable and untouchable.”
Another surprising detail about Adele revealed in the interview is that she “has never had so much as a puff of weed” to this day. Hear that, stoners?
Speaking of which, she also mentioned wanting Rihanna on her squad. “I’ve heard about a squad,” she says, possibly referring to Taylor Swift’s revolving door of famous friends. “I wish my squad was all supermodels. We are, in our brains. I guess I have my own squad,” which she says consists of her mother and some close friends. “It’s not as interesting as some of the other squads that are around right now. But maybe Rihanna can be in my squad! That would be really cool. Oh, God. She’s life itself, isn’t she? I love her.”
Not that she wants she and Rihanna to form a squad against Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus or any controversial female artist at the moment. “I’d rather not be the person that everyone gets pitted against…that’s just pitting a woman against another woman, and I don’t hold any more moral high ground than anyone else.”
She also discusses who “Hello” really is about (“It’s actually just from the other side of becoming an adult, making it out alive from your late teens, early twenties,” she explains.), and the people she got to collaborate with for her new album 25, such as Max Martin and Shellback, Ryan Tedder, and Bruno Mars. For the record, Adele is 27, but she named the album after the age when she started writing it.
As for the reason why she disappeared for so long under the veil of privacy, she recalls the tragic trajectory of another famous British singer: “Watching Amy [Winehouse] deteriorate is one of the reasons I’m a bit frightened. We were all very entertained by her being a mess. I was fucking sad about it, but if someone showed me a picture of her looking bad, I’d look at it. If we hadn’t looked, then they’d have stopped taking her picture. That level of attention is really frightening, especially if you don’t live around all that showbiz stuff.”
[Rolling Stone]
Photos courtesy of Rolling Stone and Glamour
