Adele speaks out on baby blues, booze, Beyonce, Bette and Trump

Adele, the singer with powerful pipes, puts some of her powerful opinions on display in Vanity Fair's December cover interview, touching on her postpartum depression, giving up drinking and her indifference to money, plus her thoughts on Donald Trump and her exasperation with the sea of cellphone lights at her concerts.

The big take-away: You could take it all away — the success, the cash, the fame — and Adele wouldn't mind.

“I’d still like to make records, but I’d be fine if I never heard (the applause) again,” Adele tells VF contributing editor Lisa Robinson.
 

One thing she won't miss: All those cellphones lighting up during her concerts, as audiences focus more on their little screens than on her, she says. “People would rather have a photo to show to people than actually enjoy a moment,” she says. “It’s weird — when I first started out, nearly 10 years ago, no one had their phones out.I’d go onstage to people. Now I go onstage to 18,000 phones. "

She's suspicious of WiFi: She suggests there's a new threat to worry about: "This Wi-Fi, you watch, it’s going to...kill our insides … it’s just floating around. I’m telling you, we’ll find out in 25 years.”

How she overcame postpartum depression: "My knowledge of postpartum — or post-natal, as we call it in England — is that you don’t want to be with your child; you’re worried you might hurt your child; you’re worried you weren’t doing a good job," she says. "But I was obsessed with my child. I felt very inadequate...Eventually I just said, I’m going to give myself an afternoon a week, just to do whatever...I want without my baby. A friend of mine said, ‘Really? Don’t you feel bad?’ I said, I do, but not as bad as I’d feel if I didn’t do it.”

Her sad side: “The music I’ve always been drawn to is sad. I’ve always been pretty melancholy. Obviously not as much in my real life as the songs are, but I have a very dark side. I’m very available to depression. I can slip in and out of it quite easily."

On money and fame: “I don’t care about money. I’m British, and we don’t have that … thing of having to earn more money all the time. I don’t come from money; it’s not that important a part of my life.... the problem is you can’t talk about the downside of fame, because people have hope, and they cling to the hope of what it would be like to be famous, to be adored, to be able to create and do nice things.”

Her heroes are Beyoncé and Bette Midler: “Beyoncé's my Michael Jackson,” she says. “I’ve obviously loved (Midler) for years. I like her humor, but she’s a... great singer, a real­ly amazing singer. When I watched her show, I felt like I was real­ly watching the last legend. No one’s made like that anymore.”

Why she's no longer a "massive" drinker: “Having a hangover with a child is torture. Just imagine an annoying 3-year-old (son Angelo) who knows something’s wrong; it’s hell....I can see from an outsider’s perspective that I will never write songs as good as the ones that are on 21, but I’m not as indulgent as I was then, and I don’t have time to fall apart like I did then....Since I’ve had my baby, I’m not as carefree as I used to be.”