To Adele, the decision to postpone her Las Vegas residency is now water under the bridge.
The British songstress, who is headlining two festival shows at BST Hyde Park this weekend, told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that going forward with her planned Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace earlier this year was impossible, saying the show simply was not up to every standard.
The concerts were initially scheduled to begin Friday, Jan. 21 and run through mid-April. The postponements without any make-up dates remain a sore spot for many Adele fans and critics.
“I definitely felt everyone’s disappointment and I was devastated and I was frightened about letting them down, and I thought I could pull it together and make it work and I couldn’t, and I stand by that decision,” she said in the BBC interview.
She acknowledged the backlash was “brutal” from fans angry at shelling out money for travel and hotels, not to mention taking time off from work. That anger left her a “shell of a person for a couple of months.”
She added ““You can’t buy me, you can’t buy me for nothing. I’m not going to just do a show because I have to or because people are going to be let down or because we’re going to lose loads of money. I’m like, ‘The show’s not good enough.’”
There is still no date planned for what was alleged to be a “postponement.” The stage sets for the planned show have been junked, according to reports, and the venue has moved forward with other artists.
“I’m not gonna update you if I ain’t got nothing to update you with, because that just leads to more disappointment.”
Why the shows were canceled remains unclear. Adele at first blamed the pandemic, saying that “Half my crew, half my team is down with COVID — they still are — and it’s been impossible to finish the show.” Later, it was reported that there were professional clashes between Adele and the production team over a 60-person choir and a pond that the singer would rise from on the stage.
The London shows,in London’s Hyde Park featured an all-female lineup of artists, highlighted by Kacey Musgraves.