Adele Breaks Silence on Cultural Appropriation Scandal: ‘I Didn’t Read the F*cking Room’
Adele has broken her silence on the wave of backlash she faced for an outfit donned at London’s Notting Hill Carnival.
The singer, making history by appearing on the November 2021 covers of both U.S. and British Vogue, gave her first interview in five years, in which she candidly discussed her weight loss, her divorce, and the controversial Jamaican themed getup.
In August 2020, Adele posted a picture of herself from a past Notting Hill Carnival, honoring the annual Caribbean celebration on the year Covid-19 shut it down:
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“Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London,” she wrote in the caption.
The singer instantly received criticism for the shot, as it showed her in a Jamaican flag-print bikini and with bantu knots in her hair — a style traditionally worn by Black people in the region.
“I totally get why people felt like it was appropriating,” she told British Vogue, explaining that her initial thoughts were, “If you don’t go dressed to celebrate the Jamaican culture – and in so many ways we’re so entwined in that part of London – then it’s a little bit like, ‘What you coming for, then?’”
Adele went on to admit, “I didn’t read the fucking room,” adding, “I was wearing a hairstyle that is actually to protect Afro hair. Ruined mine, obviously.”
Adele also kept the photograph up despite the deluge of disapproval, now explaining that she didn’t want to act like it had never happened.
“I could see comments being like, ‘the nerve to not take it down,’ which I totally get. But if I take it down, it’s me acting like it never happened,” she said. “And it did.”
