Adele had the best response to be being asked if her boyfriend minded her not shaving her legs

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.

Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.

Louise Thomas

Editor

Adele’s Vanity Fair profile has introduced some often thought but rarely expressed views about motherhood, postnatal depression and the propensity to reduce women to the sum total of their parenting skills once they have a child.

In frank comments welcomed by mothers, the singer critcised the intense pressure to procreate and then perform as a parent. She summarised her own struggles with being a new mother in an exchange she had with a friend: “One day I said, ‘I f**kin’ hate this,’ and she just burst into tears and said, ‘I f**kin’ hate this, too.’”

The expansive profile also unintentionally veered towards another debate surrounding women’s bodies when Adele explained how she only shaved her legs after starting her tour in case they were spotted by the audience on the front row. Vanity Fair's reaction was to ask how her partner Simon Konecki felt about her decision to ditch the razor.

“He has no choice,” she retorted. “I’ll have no man telling me to shave my f**kin’ legs. Shave yours.”

The 10-time Grammy award winner has used her concerts to blast some of the “f**king ridiculous” pressures on new and expectant mothers, memorably telling those advocating that women must to “go f**k yourselves, alright?”.

In her interview, Adele also addressed the decision made by some women not to have a child in a society that often measures womanhood on motherhood, Andrea Leadsom’s comments about Theresa May’s ability to be Prime Minister after not having children being a widely condemned case in point.

“I think it’s the bravest thing not to have a child; all my friends and I felt pressurised into having kids, because that’s what adults do. I love my son more than anything, but on a daily basis, if I have a minute or two, I wish I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, whenever I want. Every single day I feel like that.”