Adele reveals she stopped drinking: ‘Borderline alcoholic for a lot of my 20s’

Gareth Cattermole

Adele may sing “I Drink Wine” — but that doesn’t mean she actually drinks wine.

The singer got candid about her relationship to alcohol during an October 2023 performance of her Las Vegas residency show “Weekends with Adele,” saying she recently stopped drinking, per a fan-captured video.

It wasn’t the first time she opened up on the topic of alcohol. Adele joins a list of other celebrities, like Tom Holland and Bradley Cooper, to speak about their sobriety.

2023: Adele says she was ‘borderline alcoholic’ in her 20s

During her Las Vegas residency in October 2023, Adele stopped to interact with someone in the audience drinking a whiskey sour.

“I stopped drinking quite a long time ago,” the 35-year old singer said. “It feels like forever. Maybe like three and a half months ago?”

She said her lifestyle has changed as a result, and that she was “jealous” of the whiskey sour.

“It’s boring. Oh my God, it’s boring,” she said. “I mean, I was literally borderline alcoholic for quite a lot of my 20s. I miss it so much. … Enjoy your whiskey sour, I’m very, very jealous.”

2021: Adele tells Oprah she stopped drinking to ‘get to know’ herself

During a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Adele spoke about how she changed her behavior after her divorce from Simon Konecki. “I spent a lot of time alone sitting with my feelings,” she said.

Part of her journey to self-discovery was getting sober. “I stopped drinking. That’s one great way of getting to know yourself, is just drinking water and being sober as anything,” she said.

Adele told Oprah that alcohol previously “fascinated” her because it “took (her) dad from (her).”

Adele’s father, Mark Evans, died in 2021 of bowel cancer, which can be linked to alcoholism.

“Well, when I was going through everything a couple of years ago, when I was going through my divorce, yes,” she said of quitting drinking. “Not at the beginning. At first, I was probably keeping the alcohol industry alive. But you know, once I realized that I had a lot of work to do on myself, I stopped drinking and I started working out lots and stuff like that to keep me centered.”

2021: She sings about alcohol

Adele sang about her relationship to alcohol in “30,” the 2021 album about that period in her life, in the song “I Drink Wine.” Adele is listed as a writer for the song.

“When I was a child / Every single thing could blow my mind / Soaking it all up for fun / But now I only soak up wine,” she sings in the piece.

2016: She says she stopped drinking for several months

In her 2016. Carpool Karoake episode with James Corden, she told an entertaining story about having several glasses of wine at dinner, the first couple while she waited for a friend who was an hour late. During the anecdote, she shared, “Bear in mind, I haven’t really had a drink for eight months.” She then quipped about being hungover with her son, Angelo, in the park the next day.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com