An Australian TV host has apologised for “insulting” Adele in their recent shelved interview, calling it a “terrible mistake”.
Matt Doran – from Channel 7 – flew from Sydney to London on November 4 to sit down with Adele for her one and only Australian interview to promote her latest record, but during the chat he admitted he hadn’t heard the album.
This admission led to the singer’s label, Sony Music, withholding the interview footage, which was part of a rights package that had cost Channel 7 A$1m (£500,000), according to Australian media (via BBC News).
After apologising and saying that he had missed an email with a preview copy of the album sent to him ahead of its release, Doran has taken to his show to give a further apology and explanation to the situation.
Talking during a monologue on his Weekend Sunrise show yesterday (27 November), Doran said: “If I’m being honest with you, the bulk of this savaging I deserve and I totally own.”
He went on to explain: “The day after we landed in London an email came through from Sony. It didn’t mention Adele, but it did contain a link to her album.
“The genuine, deadset, hand on heart truth is that I missed it. By an absurdly long margin the most important email I’ve ever missed in my life.”
Calling it a “terrible mistake,” Doran refuted claims that Adele walked out on the interview upon learning that he hadn’t heard the album, and said: “But all that doesn’t matter because, by missing the album link, however I might try to justify it, I’ve insulted Adele.”
Elsewhere, Adele has scored a UK chart double with her new album ’30’ and single ‘Easy On Me’.
The singer-songwriter shot straight to the top spot with her fourth LP, which has become the fastest selling record of 2021 so far after clocking up 261,000 sales.
It also scored the biggest first-week sales for an album since Ed Sheeran’s ‘÷’ in 2017, as well as the biggest opener for a female solo album since Adele’s last album, ‘25‘, in 2015, according to the Official Charts Company.
The record is this week’s biggest seller on vinyl, with 16,700 copies sold on wax and the most-streamed album of the week with a staggering 55.7million plays across its 12 tracks.
Reviewing ’30’, NME wrote: “Despite its more experimental moments, ‘30’ still winds up feeling like trademark Adele, in its own way, most of the time. And after fair accusations of playing it safe musically in the past, it’s refreshing to see the pop titan treading braver territory – even if the hit-rate isn’t 100 per cent.”