Apparently, locked down in California with her son, Angelo, and myriad pets, her parenting style devolved like everyone elseвЂ™s. Then, вЂњInstead of being like, вЂYou effingвЂ¦ вЂ™вЂќ at this point, she drops her first delicious C-bomb of the day and falls about laughing. вЂњI have to really address myself now,вЂќ she says, earnestly. Formal pleasantries dispensed with, it takes four minutes to get to how sheвЂ™s done with lambasting her exes in her lyrics. For a certain sort of prickly Brit, the worry is that reality might have become a foreign land to her вЂ“ but the signs are good.

In paparazzi terms, she essentially lives off-grid, in what the papers love to call her вЂњcompound in Beverly HillsвЂќ, next door to Jennifer Lawrence et al. She hasnвЂ™t spoken to a journalist since 2016, and on top of, you know, a pandemic and the general day-to-day of being a single mum, sheвЂ™s been married and divorced in that time. In a world that canвЂ™t agree on much, perhaps we can once again agree on Adele. To be honest, it feels like she has turned up in the nick of time. She is once again ready to play havoc with the emotional wellbeing of a billion music fans to deliver the latest chapter in the sonic revelations of her heart. The single is imminent, the album approaches. (Improbably, she has a little hamper of treats with her and passes me a green juice.) вЂњI mean, I have to sort of gear myself up to be famous again, which famously I donвЂ™t really like being.вЂќ But yes, she can, at last, confirm: Adele is back.

There is an art to being Adele.ДЄnd weвЂ™re off: вЂњIвЂ™m alrite, вЂ™ow are you?вЂќ she launches in, heavenly accent unchanged. Safely re-ensconced in her privacy bubble, the person with the first and fourth fastest-selling albums of the 21st century visibly relaxes. Nineties thriller-style, we are rushed through some swing doors into a kitchen, past hissing stovetops and blinking staff, out into a salubrious bar and through вЂ“ finally вЂ“ to a cavernous private room, empty save for two cocktails standing on a table. IвЂ™m taking too long, and when I catch up to Adele, something like worry, and a little like annoyance, have roamed across her normally merry features. We are yabbering away on the back seat behind blacked-out windows, but before the car has truly stopped, Adele вЂ“ cackling, conspiratorial, complex вЂ“ has flung open her door mid-sentence and, head down, is loping across the concrete at speed.ДЇumbling with my seat belt and recording paraphernalia, I scramble out after her, somehow dropping my bag on the ground, as up ahead a tense security guard pointedly holds open the hotel door. It is late afternoon in Manhattan, and her low-slung Mercedes is squeezing down a narrow ramp into the basement car park of the Four Seasons Hotel, the latest manoeuvre in the 15-times Grammy winnerвЂ™s decade-long mission never to be photographed unawares. There is an art to being Adele, which is to say that being the worldвЂ™s most fleetingly glimpsed megastar is not a status achieved by bungling your exit from a limo.

Majalah nova