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Adele · S7 E5
Oprah
The CBS special watched by 10 million people. She cries. Oprah cries. America cries. The album sells a million copies that week.
November 14, 2021, the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles. Adele sits across from Oprah Winfrey on a hilltop overlooking the city, and for the next two hours tells ten million viewers everything: the divorce, the anxiety, the weight loss, and why she nearly didn't make another album.
Adele, "I Drink Wine" (live at the BRIT Awards, 2022). A sprawling, six-minute performance that turns the BRITs ceremony into a theatre piece: Adele surrounded by water, backed by a full band, singing about acceptance and letting go. The performance captures the same emotional openness that made the Oprah interview resonate with millions.
I Drink Wine (Live at the BRITs)
The BRITs performance of "I Drink Wine" is staged in a pool of water, with Adele wading through it as she sings. The visual metaphor is not subtle, and it doesn't need to be: she's literally walking through something. The live arrangement extends the song's already generous runtime, giving the outro room to breathe. It's the most theatrically ambitious live performance of her career.
The Special
"Adele One Night Only" airs on CBS on November 14, 2021, five days before album 30 drops. The format splits between a concert filmed at the Griffith Observatory and an interview with Oprah. Ten million people watch. The album sells over 800,000 copies in its first week, and every review mentions the Oprah conversation as the moment that unlocked the album's emotional context.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Adele reveal to Oprah that shocked viewers?
“"I've been obsessed with a nuclear family my whole life because I never came from one. I wanted that for my son more than anything."”
Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles
The hilltop venue where Adele performed for a hand-picked audience of 300 guests with the Los Angeles skyline behind her, for the CBS One Night Only special.
What unique format did the "Adele One Night Only" CBS special use?
The Joke, Brandi Carlile
From Brandi Carlile's By The Way, I Forgive You (2018). A song addressed to anyone who's been broken down, telling them to let the tears fall because the joke is on the people who tried to destroy you. The same raw, confessional energy that Adele brings to the Oprah interview lives in Carlile's vocal: two women who turn vulnerability into strength. Carlile was nominated for three Grammys for this song. Adele won three for 30.
The Joke, Brandi Carlile (2018)
Read the lyrics while you listen. Carlile wrote this as a message to anyone who's been told they're too much. The same message runs through every word of the Oprah interview: Adele is too emotional, too honest, too willing to fall apart on camera. That openness is not weakness. It's the whole point.
One Night Only
The world knows everything now. But there is one more person in this story. Next episode: Rich Paul, the sports agent who arrives after the worst of it, and the relationship that exists on 30 only in its absence.
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