Adele Adkins

Singer-Songwriter

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on 5 May 1988 in Tottenham, North London, but her father's roots trace directly back to Wales. Mark Evans, a plumber from Penarth, near Cardiff, met Adele's mother, Penny Adkins, in London in 1987, and it is through him that Adele has long been claimed as having a proud Welsh connection.

Evans left the family when Adele was three, and the relationship became increasingly strained through her childhood as he battled alcoholism, following the death of his own father, the end of a relationship, and the sudden loss of his best friend. Adele cut off contact with him at the age of twelve after he failed to appear for a planned Father's Day visit, and the two remained estranged for the best part of two decades.

Evans was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2013, and once he learned the illness was terminal, Adele travelled to Wales to see him, and the pair found reconciliation and closure after years apart. She played him an early copy of her album 30 over a video call shortly before he died in May 2021, aged 57.

Adele has gone on to become one of the best-selling recording artists in modern British music history, with albums 19, 21, 25 and 30 collectively selling well over 100 million copies worldwide and earning her sixteen Grammy Awards, among numerous other honours.

One of the best-selling and most decorated recording artists of her generation, whose father Mark Evans was a Welsh plumber from Penarth - the pair reconciled in Wales shortly before his death in 2021

Evans grew up in Penarth on the South Wales coast, and it was there that Adele travelled for their reconciliation after his diagnosis became terminal, spending time getting to know the Welsh side of her family in the place her father called home.

Adele has spoken publicly and candidly about the pain of the estrangement and the relief of making peace with her father before his death, describing their final years as bringing a sense of closure that she had not expected to find.

Career Highlights

Four studio albums - 19, 21, 25 and 30 - each named for her age at the time of writing
Sixteen Grammy Awards, among the most of any artist of her generation
One of the best-selling recording artists of the 21st century, with over 120 million records sold worldwide
Reconciled with her Welsh father, Mark Evans of Penarth, before his death in May 2021