Adele’s History of Canceled Shows and Health Issues Following Latest Las Vegas News

Adele fans have been left heartbroken after the Grammy-winning star announced the postponement of 10 dates of her Las Vegas residency due to health concerns.

In a statement posted on social media, Adele, 35, said she had been told to rest completely “on doctors’ orders” and would be postponing the remaining five weekends of her run at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace to a later date.

“I love you, I will miss you terribly and I am sorry for the inconvenience,” she told her fans.

She had hinted at an impending hiatus from her shows on February 24, when she admitted to having a scare with her voice.

“I can’t pronounce my top notes properly,” she told her audience. “I didn’t sleep very well and my chest is on fire. Right after this show, I’m going to rest my voice.”

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the British singer has been forced to cancel or postpone concerts.

Here’s a timeline of Adele’s history of vocal issues and postponed shows.

In 2011, Adele underwent vocal cord microsurgery to remove a benign polyp that had formed under her epithelium, the thin outer layer of the vocal cord, after suffering a vocal cord hemorrhage while singing live on a French radio show.

Then 23, Adele underwent surgery by Dr. Steven Zeitels, who runs the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital. At the time, he had already repaired the vocal cords of artists including Bono, Sam Smith, Lionel Richie and Cher.

Months later, at the 2012 Grammy Awards, Adele thanked Zeitels in her acceptance speech for Best Pop Solo Performance.

“I don’t even know how to begin,” Adele wrote in an online letter to her fans on June 30, 2017, a day after performing the second of four sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium. The concerts, attended by 98,000 people each night, were meant to mark the end of Adele’s record-breaking 123-date world tour to promote her latest album, 25.

But Adele told fans she struggled to recover from Wembley. “I had to work a lot harder than usual. I felt like I was constantly clearing my throat.” She went to see her doctor, who told her she had damaged her vocal cords and had no choice but to cancel the final two dates of her tour.

“To say I am heartbroken would be an understatement,” Adele said.

The move led to nearly 200,000 tickets being refunded, while fans and media alike speculated about whether Adele would be able to tour again. Perhaps in another example of foreshadowing, Adele had joked on the first night of her Wembley residency that she was “terrible” and “unreliable” on tour, to the point that she had struggled to get insurance for the run of concerts.

In an interview with The Guardian, Former opera singer and vocal coach Lisa Paglin has said she feels sad but justified about the Wembley shows, after previously warning that Adele’s operation was only a temporary fix.

The real problem, Paglin and his professional partner, Marianna Brilla, say, is that generations of talented singers are not singing “correctly,” leading to lasting and potentially career-threatening vocal injuries.

“You can’t fix the problem by just relieving the symptom,” Brilla said. “It’s a motor problem. The singer has to understand that this is how you operate your motor” — the techniques he uses to sing. “If you don’t fix the motor, it’s going to happen again.”

In what Adele called the “worst moment” of her career, she announced the postponement of her highly anticipated Las Vegas residency less than 24 hours before the first show was scheduled to take place.

The “Someone Like You” star was scheduled to perform weekend shows from January to April 2022 at Caesar’s Palace, but shared a video on social media tearfully explaining that the show wouldn’t be ready in time.

The announcement made headlines around the world, as furious and devastated fans criticised him for not giving more notice, having already spent thousands of dollars on flights, hotels and tickets.

“I stand by that decision. I don’t think any other artist would have done what I did, and I think that’s why it was such a huge story,” Adele told Lauren Lavern on Desert Island Discs in July of that year.

“It was like, ‘I don’t care,’ and stuff like that. You can’t buy me. You can’t buy me for nothing. I’m not going to do a show just because I have to or because people are going to be disappointed or because we’re going to lose a lot of money. I’m like, ‘The show’s not good enough.’”

Adele announced the extension of her residency to October 2023, telling fans that being “so up close and personal” with an audience again had been a “truly restorative experience” she would never forget.

“All of the hilarious, emotional, wild, and heartbreaking interactions we had are etched in my memory for life,” she said. “But most importantly, it made me realize how much I truly love being on stage, that I am truly gifted at it, and that it is 100% my role!”

However, she may have foreshadowed the final cancellation with a remark she made in December of that year, where she said The Hollywood Reporter that she was afraid of wearing out her voice.

“It’s a lot of singing,” she said. “It’s two hours. It’s a lot. And I talk like crazy and I chatter like crazy, too.”

Adele hinted at an impending hiatus from performing during her show on Saturday, February 24, where she admitted to having a scare with her voice.

“In the middle of last night (I’m sure you can hear it in my speaking voice and a little bit in my singing voice), your daughter was tired,” she told the audience. “Your daughter was tired. I didn’t sleep very well.”

She added: “I can’t pronounce my top notes properly. I didn’t sleep very well and my chest is on fire. Right after this show, I’m going to rest my voice.”

Adele’s next concert is scheduled for Friday, May 17.