Adele accepts the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at The Hollywood Reporter‘s annual Women in Entertainment gala.
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00:00 Thank you, Queenie.
00:02 [laughter]
00:03 Everyone's done such a great job of reading from that autocue,
00:06 but there's no way I'm going to be able to do that.
00:08 I've never done it in my life, so I will be reading off of my own stuff.
00:12 Could I clear this so I don't get confused and start reading somebody else's?
00:15 Hello. Good morning.
00:17 [laughter]
00:18 I am jet-lagged, as anything.
00:21 Fucking hell, it's definitely nighttime to me.
00:24 Ready for a drink.
00:25 [laughter]
00:27 [cheers and applause]
00:30 I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this event tonight.
00:34 The scholarship had me in floods of tears.
00:36 Girls, congratulations.
00:38 Absolutely beautiful to watch you.
00:42 My boyfriend, Rich, was casting me out because I cry at anything,
00:45 but obviously that's absolutely worth it for everything that you guys were saying and doing.
00:48 So congratulations.
00:50 Kerry, you know I love you.
00:51 Woo!
00:53 Also finally got to meet Dua Lipa.
00:55 Bit star-struck. Absolutely love her.
00:57 Love a Londoner.
00:59 And I'm just going to listen.
01:01 Disclaimer, I'm not really a motivational words kind of gal.
01:04 [laughter]
01:08 I'm just going to be up front about it straight away.
01:10 I'm also not really a speeches kind of gal.
01:13 So, well, they're really not my fucking forte, I can't lie.
01:19 [laughter]
01:20 When I'm nervous, I swear, forgive me, I'm British, what can I say?
01:23 I've never prepared one of these in my life.
01:25 I do, of course, though, as quite a few people in the room know,
01:28 I have the gift of the gab.
01:31 I can absolutely talk for hours and eat your ear off,
01:34 but when I talk for hours, it's about nothing.
01:37 [laughter]
01:41 Really.
01:42 So writing this has become-- well, not become, it's been quite a challenge.
01:45 I can't really lie.
01:47 And suddenly it dawned on me last night, I flew in from London last night,
01:50 and it dawned on me when I was writing this that there is no way--
01:53 I'm not saying it this event, but there is no way that all these big, long speeches
01:57 that we're always hearing from people, people cannot be writing those themselves.
02:01 It's impossible.
02:02 It's such a hard task.
02:04 I'm convinced that I could have hired someone to write this.
02:07 [laughter]
02:08 But it's too late now, you're going to have to listen to what I've got.
02:11 So easy peasy first, obviously, thank you so, so much to the Hollywood Reporter.
02:15 It's an absolute honor to be here today in full fucking glam at 8am on a Thursday morning.
02:21 [applause]
02:30 No, no, no, seriously, thank you so much for having me at this event.
02:33 It really is incredible.
02:34 I'm being serious.
02:35 I am honored to be here, I'm just saying.
02:38 It's listed as a brunch, this is breakfast.
02:41 [laughter]
02:44 Like I said earlier, congratulations to the scholarship winners and the mentor program.
02:48 That's incredible.
02:49 To the other honorees tonight.
02:51 And of course, the most, the reason I'm here, to Sherry Lansing.
02:55 What a don.
02:57 [applause]
02:59 Not really sure where to begin, Sherry.
03:01 I guess this award is pretty self-explanatory, I suppose.
03:05 I'm not quite--
03:06 This is still--
03:07 It's hard with this microphone, isn't it, Dua?
03:08 We're very, very tall, we're supermodels.
03:10 [laughter]
03:11 Well, you are, I'm not, but anyway.
03:13 But having a whole award named after yourself and your legacy is quite a flex, so.
03:18 [laughter]
03:19 It is.
03:21 I'm going to get serious for one second.
03:24 Shitting myself.
03:26 [laughter]
03:27 Sherry, you are the epitome, absolute epitome of what it is to open doors.
03:33 And more importantly, to leave them open.
03:36 [applause]
03:42 I'm blown away to even be sitting next to you tonight.
03:45 See, I told you this morning.
03:47 Let alone receiving your award, so thank you for everything you've done,
03:49 and of course, everything that you continue to do.
03:51 Thank you so much.
03:53 Yeah, give her another round of applause.
03:55 [applause]
03:59 This award feels very big and grown up,
04:03 and I feel a little bit out of my depth receiving it,
04:05 considering that I'm only 35, and I've only released four albums.
04:10 It feels like I only really kind of just arrived, that's at least how I feel.
04:13 But upon writing this speech and reflecting a little bit
04:16 and trying to work out what to say, I realise it's actually been 17 years
04:20 that I've been a signed artist, which is kind of crazy.
04:24 And sometimes I wonder within those 17 years if people think that I'm calculated,
04:28 you know, when I disappear for years on end,
04:31 that I'm elusive and that I believe that less is more,
04:33 you know, something like that.
04:35 But the real reason that I've only had four albums,
04:37 and I don't think that many people know this.
04:39 They might know that I have a child and that I'm a mum,
04:42 but my son is 11 years old, right?
04:45 So if you do the math, that means that right at the height of 21,
04:48 I could only call it pandemonium because that's how it felt to me.
04:51 Overnight it was like I was famous.
04:53 It was the strangest, most surreal experience of my life still to this day.
04:56 I felt pregnant, and to many that would be,
05:00 and it was considered career suicide.
05:02 However, always one to go against the grain.
05:06 It was there and then that I chose to reject the scarcity of success
05:10 and the idea that you have to be constantly relevant to be successful,
05:13 and that perhaps, just maybe, I could be a hit both on and off the stage,
05:18 and you'll never guess what, I fucking got away with it.
05:21 (laughter)
05:23 (applause)
05:27 And why?
05:29 Because of all the sacrifices that the women before me have made,
05:32 it's because of them that I have every right to be the boss at work
05:36 and the boss at home, so thank you.
05:39 (applause)
05:44 Now when it comes to how I might be here accepting this award,
05:47 I'm not particularly sure, I'm not entirely sure,
05:49 but I can't help but think,
05:51 and that's not me being self-deprecating or humble or anything,
05:54 I was genuinely quite shocked.
05:56 But I can't help but think because it's much to do with my character
05:59 as it does my talent.
06:01 Talent can't dictate how you move.
06:04 Talent can't decide how you treat people.
06:07 It doesn't have a moral compass. Talent cannot read a room.
06:11 You can be the most talented person on the planet and only make bad decisions,
06:14 and to be honest, talent is kind of random, you know?
06:17 It's like, you might have it, but what does it mean?
06:19 But character, well, character is observed, it is witnessed,
06:24 character is taught, and it's passed down.
06:26 My character, as I'm sure you can tell just from the last minute I've been on stage,
06:29 has a roughness and a toughness to it.
06:33 I trust no one, and yet I'm completely fearless,
06:36 and I 100% got it from the women who raised me.
06:39 As a child, you're a sponge, you learn what you're shown.
06:42 My mother, my aunties, my grandmothers,
06:46 they were all strong, loud, boisterous, loyal, and cutthroat women, like me.
06:53 Always ready to jump for you kind of women, chaotic but focused,
06:56 soft in the middle but solid on the outside, like me.
07:00 They were a force to be reckoned with and quite frankly, terrifying at times, like me.
07:06 But that was because they had to be.
07:08 They had to learn the hard way what it is to be a woman,
07:10 and so in turn, they hardened.
07:12 Their character was their armor, but thanks to them, my character is my skin.
07:17 As a child, you're a sponge, you learn what you're shown.
07:20 My teachers, my school teachers.
07:23 My God, I had some of the most amazing teachers who gave me my love of literature,
07:27 of words, of poems, and rhymes, stories, and writing.
07:30 They were far too qualified to be teaching at a school like mine.
07:33 I could easily have made double the money at private schools,
07:36 but they stayed with us to give us a chance, and that taught me loyalty.
07:41 These are my leaders, and I'm eternally grateful to them all for making me who I am today.
07:46 So thank you, guys. None of them are here, they're all in England.
07:50 All right, so my manager, right, this is where the lines get a bit blurry for me.
07:53 I don't--am I allowed to talk about a man, like, having a really positive impact on me?
07:59 At an event for women?
08:03 You never know.
08:04 You know what, just to be safe, let me thank his mum first, Jill Dickens.
08:08 [laughter]
08:12 Thank you for giving birth to Jonathan. Woo!
08:17 Jonathan, I'm not going to cry, you might, though.
08:20 And this might be controversial in the room, because I'm about to big this man the fuck up, okay?
08:25 I've never done it before in my life, really. He thinks I hate him.
08:30 No one has ever believed in me the way that you have.
08:34 From day one, when I was a teenager--or maybe I might get a bit emotional, actually--
08:38 you had me in every room and every meeting.
08:41 If I didn't understand something, you'd go over and over it with me,
08:44 like a kid doing maths in the kitchen with an irritated parent.
08:48 You've never tried to change me, never told me to pipe down or be small,
08:52 never told me to lose weight or gain weight, never told me to hurry up or rush an album,
08:57 and you were the happiest for me when I told you I was pregnant.
09:01 Not only have you helped me become a top-tier artist, Jonathan,
09:04 but you've helped me become a top-tier person, which in the end is all that actually matters.
09:10 I know. Give him a big clap.
09:13 [applause]
09:18 I'm going to tell him to fuck off later.
09:22 Jonathan is the example, but I actually have many men in my life who I love and who love me,
09:26 but in the spirit of this morning and in fear of bras being burned,
09:30 I'm going to thank their mothers and not them.
09:33 So along with Jill, I would like to thank Minerva Martin,
09:37 Rose McConnachie and Rosalind Russell, to name a few.
09:40 Thank you to them for raising good men who do not think that a woman's power diminishes their own.
09:46 That's a fucking vibe.
09:48 [applause]
09:55 It's nearly over, thank goodness.
09:58 And so I stand here today, Rose is crying her eyes out, my other manager,
10:02 "Are you all right? I love you too. I do, I do."
10:06 And so I stand here today as a testament to all of you,
10:10 all of the women before me and beside me who broke down doors and left them open for us.
10:16 I don't have stories of how my path to success was hard because it wasn't,
10:20 and I know that's rare and I know I'm lucky.
10:23 But that's because of you.
10:25 A lot of you had to claim your power and you've given me mine.
10:28 Thank you for leaving the key.
10:30 I accept this leadership award as an invitation to carry on being myself.
10:34 It's got to be quite far.
10:38 But also as a reminder that I'm following you.
10:41 I'm following you and that every single person has the right to be the boss at work and the boss at home.
10:47 And like I said at the top, even though it's morning, it only feels right to say goodnight.
10:50 So thank you very much.
10:52 [applause]
10:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]