Adele has candidly shared more details about the extent of her back problems during a recent performance at her ‘Weekends With Adele’ residency in Las Vegas.
The 34-year-old songstress expressed that she was performing with a disintegrated disk in her spine, saying: “Is anyone else kind of my age starting getting bad knees? I have got really bad sciatica in my left leg and my L5 disc is not fucking there anymore. It’s worn away.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the L5 disk’s associated nerve, situated at the lower back, is responsible for providing “sensation to the outer side of your lower leg, the upper part of your foot and the space between your first and second toe”. It also “controls hip, knee, foot and toe movements”. Sciatica, a result of the compressed L5 nerve, can bring physical pain, numbness and weakness according to the Mayo Clinic.
The singer first revealed her sciatica diagnosis during her New Year’s Eve show at the residency last year, expressing to the crowd: “I have to waddle these days as I have really bad sciatica.”
Earlier in 2021, she highlighted that her back issues have persisted since her youth. In an interview with The Face, she explained: “I slipped my first disc when I was 15 from sneezing. I was in bed and I sneezed and my fifth one flew out.” She added that in January that year, she “slipped [her]… L6”, and expressed that these issues were amplified after her “core” was rendered “useless” after her C-Section.
She continued: “It flares up, normally due to stress or from a stupid bit of posture. But where I got my tummy strong, down at the bottom, which I never had before, my back don’t play up as much.”
Adele’s ‘Weekends With Adele’ residency, which takes place at the Caesars Palace Colosseum, began on November 18 last year, consists of a total of 32 dates. Stormzy was present as an audience member on opening night, and praised it as “probably the best show” he had ever seen.
In a December concert, she also touched on her return to regular therapy after going a few years without it. She admitted to making therapy a crutch in the past, stating: “I stopped holding myself accountable for my own behaviour and the things I would say and it’s because I would always fall back on my therapist.” She further explained that her return to therapy was motivated by performance demands: “But now I am doing it because I just want to make sure I’m topping myself up every week to make sure I can give you everything.”
Recently, Adele took home the award for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2023 Grammys, which took place on February 5 at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena. In total, she was nominated for seven Grammy awards, including Song of The Year for ‘Easy On Me’, and Album of The Year for ‘30’.