Damon Albarn denies calling Adele insecure: ‘I enjoyed hanging out with her, we had a cup of tea’

Blur frontman claims that he was misquoted when describing singer's music as 'middle of the road'

Damon Albarn has denied describing Adele as “insecure”, stating that he was misquoted by tabloid journalists who overheard a private conversation.

In September, Albarn was quoted by The Sun as calling Adele “very insecure” and describing her music as “middle of the road”. The comments came as it was confirmed that the Blur frontman had worked with Adele for her new album but doubted that the material would ever be used.

Adele later responded to the perceived criticism, saying that she “regrets” working with one of her musical idols. The singer told Rolling Stone: “None of it was right. None of it suited my record… He said I was insecure, when I’m the least insecure person I know. I was asking his opinion about my fears, about coming back with a child involved — because he has a child — and then he calls me insecure?”

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Having previously described the reported comments as “not even true”, Albarn was questioned on the topic again in a new interview with BBC Newsbeat. He responded: “No, no, no. Here we go. I have to get this right otherwise it just becomes kind of clickbait, doesn’t it?”

He explained: “What happened was I didn’t speak to anybody about Adele… I did have a conversation with my mate and it wasn’t in the most private space. Somebody definitely overheard it, but took very, very small details from it and cobbled them all together and presented it as something I said”.

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“Insecure… I never called her insecure,” Albarn continued. “I found when I was hanging out with her that her openness was her great strength. And clearly that was something she was channelling into her music and that’s what we talked about.”

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Asked about Adele’s comments that it was “one of those ‘don’t meet your idol’ moments”, Albarn added: “Oh well, she’s just reacting to what she thought I said. It’s one of those things, isn’t it. I hope she doesn’t really think that.”

“I’m cool about that. She just came in and had a cup of tea. We just played some bits and bobs, it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t like I went away and spent weeks trying to construct the perfect pop song for Adele.”

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“We had a very casual meeting, I enjoyed hanging out with her and that was the end of it.”

Adele’s new album ’25’ was released on November 20. Read the NME review of Adele’s ’25’.

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