Adele reveals emotional meaning behind new mountain tattoo

Adele has finally addressed her new mountain tattoo, over a year after it was first spotted by observant fans. 

With so much frenzy surrounding Adele’s weight loss secrets and her stunning hair transformation (have you seen those Saturn earrings from One Night Only?), it can be easy to overlook another key aspect of her iconic look—her tattoos. 

The My Little Love singer has decorated her skin with an impressive number of inkings over the course of her career, having reportedly endured the needle eleven times since her overnight rise to fame back in 2008. 

While Adele rarely acknowledges her tattoos in the media, she hasn't exactly hidden them from public view either. 

Some of her best-known tattoos include an image of a large flying bird on her lower back and the word 'Paradise' stamped in capital letters on her left hand. Adele's mom Penny Adkins has also been celebrated in her body art, with a simple stencil of a coin and a heart paying homage to the 53-year-old Londoner on her wrist. Inside the coin, the digits '1921'—a reference of her two first albums—can be spotted (if you squint very hard!) 

One of the Grammy-award-winner's most recent tattoos is a Saturn drawing on her arm, which is believed to be a tribute to her nine-year-old son, Angelo. If that wasn't heartwarming enough, she has also honored his initials with an etching of an italic 'A' behind her ear. 

And it seems the Tottenham native, who released her highly-anticipated Adele 30 album on Friday, isn't about to ditch her love for tattoos any time soon. The 33-year-old confirmed she has added yet another tattoo to her skin in her latest interview, bringing an end to months of speculation over the mysterious body mark on her right wrist. 

The small design made its public debut during Adele’s Saturday Night Light appearance in October 2020, sending viewers into a desperate frenzy to find out its true meaning.  

In her most recent interview, the Grammy award winner opened up to CBC about the significance behind the scenic design. 

“I’ve got my little mountain that I climb,” she revealed, gently rolling back her sleeve to unveil a shaded sketch of a mountainous range. “I feel like I’m always on a mountain.” 

The drawing, which is so small that interviewer Tom Power initially mistook it for an entrance stamp, is rumored to be the handiwork of LA sketch artist Doctor Woo. The renowned tattooist reportedly created the image in March 2020, a year before Adele finalized her divorce from Simon Konecki. Now always within her eyeshot, it serves as a visual reminder of the neverending ups and downs of life—and an empowering message to keep going, no matter how steep the ascent. 

Pointing to the bottom of the slope, she said, “Right now I feel like I’ve walked down here, but soon there’ll be another bloody mountain. I need to learn what the tools are to make climbing up the next mountain easier each time.”