9781422271247

CHAPTER 1

A STAR

IS BORN

Musical Marvel Ever since the release of “Rolling in the Deep,” Adele has arguably become the world’s greatest entertainer, a musical marvel with no equal. Already the owner of a mind-boggling 15 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, and a bundle of Billboard Music Awards, among many others, she continues to roll out breath-taking, soul-touching work that is embraced and listened to over and over again by millions of fans worldwide. Her four studio albums— 19 , 21 , 25, and 30 —have been widely acclaimed, applauded, and consumed globally. Adele has sold more than 120 million records, and that was before the release of 30 in the fall of 2021, which became the top-selling album of the year, a feat accomplished less than 72 hours after the album dropped. A Mother’s Love Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on May 5, 1988, to Mark Evans and Penny Susan Adkins inTottenham, a large town in Northern England. Her parents’ relationship was rocky from the beginning, and they split up when Adele was three years old. She lived with her mom, who took on an assortment of jobs—making furniture being one of them—to support the pair. Meanwhile, her father struggled with alcohol addiction and wasn’t around much for

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a star is born