Strutting through the VIP area at Coachella music festival in California, in a designer trouser suit and flat loafers, Adele exuded ‘rich mom’ energy. There with her son Angelo, now 13, to watch Justin Bieber, her transformation from the chubby girl from Tottenham into one of the world’s most famous – and wealthy – women was there for all to see.
It was a rare sighting of the star as she spends most of her time holed up in the £43million Beverly Hills mansion she and boyfriend Rich Paul bought from Sylvester Stallone back in 2022 – a stone’s throw from her ex-husband Simon Konecki’s home.
Despite divorcing in 2017, they live close by for the sake of Angelo, with Adele, 37, buying the £9million home opposite for her ex so they can continue to co-parent seamlessly.
This has continued despite her relationship with Paul, a top American sports agent who friends say Adele is ‘100 per cent in love with’.
‘To the outside it seems a strange set-up,’ says a source familiar with Adele’s domestic life. ‘But she wants to ensure Angelo has his father around him as he grows up.
‘She and Simon moved out to LA together and it’s where they all call home – even if she jets around the world a lot with Rich, they’re never away for long. Adele loves being a mum. Taking Angelo to basketball and to see friends is the most important thing in her life.’
Her eagerness to stay home was also behind swapping touring for residencies in recent years, as she admitted she ‘hates’ life on the road and wants to keep Angelo’s days ‘as normal as possible’.
‘I wouldn’t change it for the world,’ she said. ‘I get to be with him on weekends now.’
So just what does Adele get up to in her home with eight bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a huge swimming pool, gym and cinema?
‘She spends a lot of time in the gym [as evidenced by her dramatic body transformation over the years],’ says the source.
‘She also loves cooking and is a bit of a domestic goddess. She loves looking after Rich. She comes from a proper working class background where eating out wasn’t always possible.
‘She doesn’t love going out, it’s just too much hassle for her, even in LA where so many people are famous. She gets noticed and it becomes insane. She’d rather sit in and watch EastEnders.’
There might even be an extra someone for Adele to care for because rumours she has become a mother again won’t go away.
She’s been vocal in the past about wanting a baby with Rich. And having spent so long out of the spotlight in recent years, it’s more than feasible that she may have given birth in secret.
She was fiercely private about her pregnancy with Angelo. She refused to register his birth publicly for months to keep his name under wraps and shielded him from view for most of his early life.
Talk of another baby grew when she missed the 50th birthday party of best friend Lucy Dickens in the Cotswolds last July, with guests whispering she was ‘unable to fly’.
She also revealed on stage last year that a wedding could be on the cards when she replied to a fan’s ‘Will you marry me?’ call by saying: ‘I can’t marry you because I’m already getting married.’
She and Rich, who has three children, have seamlessly blended their families behind closed doors since becoming an item in 2021.
What’s beyond doubt, however, is that Adele’s period of self-isolation is nearing an end and she has a very busy 12 months ahead.
She is poised to release new music later this year for the first time since 2021 and has been working on a fifth album, alongside making her acting debut in a blockbuster movie, Cry To Heaven, starring Colin Firth, about 19th-century castrati singers.
But her move into films cannot be at the expense of her singing.
Her £90million deal with Sony Music, signed ten years ago, reportedly required her to deliver three albums of new material.
So sources say Sony bosses are keen for her to get back in the recording studio and deliver the next instalment – five years after she released her fourth album, 30.
An insider said: ‘Adele had been focusing on her residencies, the big one for two years from November 2022 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and then she did another run of shows in Munich, but the label are keen to see some new music soon after five years.
‘They knew she wasn’t someone who would be turning out a record every year or two but it’s getting towards the stage where they’re starting to ask questions.
‘In tough times for the industry they need to see a return for their money. All the other projects are a nice idea, but for the label an album is the number one priority.’
After her 2024 summer residency in Munich, Adele said she planned ‘a big break’ from music.
She told a German broadcaster: ‘My tank is empty. I don’t have any plans for new music at all. I want to do other creative things.’
But the Sony deal means that ‘extended break’ may have to wait.
