Every few months a headline promises the “secret” behind Adele’s weight loss, and every few months it turns out the secret is a stock photo of a salad. The odd thing is that there is no secret at all. Adele explained the whole thing herself in October 2021, in her Vogue cover interviews, and the explanation had very little to do with weight.
This page used to repeat the internet’s version: a personal trainer, a list of workouts, a diet built from “reports.” Here is the version from the woman who actually lived it, plus where she is now, at 38, five years after the conversation started.
Why she started: anxiety, not a dress size
Adele has said the gym arrived during the hardest stretch of her life, after her separation from Simon Konecki, her son Angelo’s father, and the end of her marriage. She told Vogue she had tried everything for her anxiety: “It was a lot of sound baths. It was a lot of meditation. It was a lot of therapy. And a lot of time spent on my own.”
Then she noticed something. “I realized that when I was working out, I didn’t have any anxiety,” she said. “It became my time.” And the line I would put at the top of every article on this subject: “It was never about losing weight, it was always about becoming strong and giving myself as much time every day without my phone.”
My read: the before-and-after industry needed her story to be about discipline and a number. She kept insisting it was about getting through a divorce with her head intact. Only one of those is a story worth telling.
What the workouts actually were
The old version of this page listed Pilates, running and a carefully balanced plate of lean protein, all “reportedly.” None of that came from her. What she did say is more honest and less tidy: “I got quite addicted to it. I work out two or three times a day.” She described the strength training as a kind of rehearsal for her emotions: “I thought, If I can make my body physically strong, and I can feel that and see that, then maybe one day I can make my emotions and my mind physically strong.”
She did not publish a meal plan, and neither will we. Any site selling you “Adele’s diet” is selling its own (usually with an affiliate link at the bottom). We also will not quote a number of pounds. She did not make it the point, so it is not ours to make.
The reaction she did not expect
When the first new photos appeared in 2020, the internet split into two loud camps: people congratulating her and people who felt she had abandoned them. Adele answered both in the same interview. “My body’s been objectified my entire career. It’s not just now,” she said. “I understand why it’s a shock. I understand why some women especially were hurt. Visually I represented a lot of women. But I’m still the same person.”
Then the part that stung: “The most brutal conversations were being had by other women about my body. I was very fucking disappointed with that. That hurt my feelings.” For a site with “positive” in its name, that is the paragraph worth sitting with. A body changing is not a betrayal, in either direction.
Life after the residency: Rich Paul, a long break and a film
The new chapter has been about everything except her body. On August 9, 2024, at one of her ten shows in Munich, a fan held up a sign reading “Will you marry me?” She replied that she could not, because she was already getting married, and showed the ring. Her fiancé is Rich Paul, the founder of Klutch Sports Group; they went public in 2021. In June 2026, on Craig Melvin’s podcast Glass Half Full, Paul said it began “through a friend” and stayed “just cordial, really, just cordial. Until it became not so cordial. Until I became a person of interest.” No wedding has been announced, whatever the tabloids suggest.
In Munich she also announced a long break after Las Vegas: “I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself, and I want to live it.” Weekends with Adele closed at Caesars Palace on November 23, 2024. She has since kept that promise better than most retirees in pop. The one exception is a big one. In November 2025, Tom Ford cast her in her first film role, his adaptation of Anne Rice’s Cry to Heaven, alongside Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Colin Firth. Shooting ran in Rome from January 19 to March 23, 2026. Her role has not been revealed, and the film has no release date yet. Reports that she is back in a London studio recording new music remain just that: reports.
@adele Bloody hell I’m pleased as punch! Thank you @mrbenwinston for dropping this round to me this afternoon!! Trust me to officially have an EGO 🤣 Thank you so much @televisionacad , I’m so so honored to receive this. Big up to everyone involved. @griffithobserv…
The real transformation
Remember those “secret” headlines? Here is the closest thing to one: a woman with anxiety found an hour a day without her phone, kept going, and then went back to singing, fell in love and took a part in a Tom Ford film. The weight was the least interesting thing that happened to her, and she has been telling us so for five years. I believe her. It is also, I suspect, the only diet tip she would ever give.
Sources
- Adele on Instagram: Weekend 50, November 2024
- Adele on Instagram (@adele)
- HOLA! USA: Adele’s Vogue interview on anxiety and weight loss (Oct 7, 2021)
- PA via BreakingNews.ie: Adele says her weight loss was caused by anxiety (Oct 2021)
- NBC New York: Adele confirms engagement to Rich Paul (Aug 2024)
- ABC7: Adele says she intends to take an extended break after Las Vegas (2024)
- NBC Boston: Rich Paul on his relationship with Adele, Glass Half Full podcast (June 10, 2026)
- Variety: Adele to make acting debut in Tom Ford’s Cry to Heaven (Nov 2025)
- Cry to Heaven (film): production dates
