More than five years into their relationship, Rich Paul is offering some rare insight into the early days of his romance with Adele. In an interview this week with Craig Melvin on the Glass Half Full podcast, Paul, 45, revealed that the couple met through a friend and that at first, though he’d known the “Someone Like You” singer for a while. “It was just cordial, really just cordial,” Klutch Sports Group founder Paul said of the meet-sorta-cute with the Grammy-winning singer.
” … Until it became not so cordial,” Paul added of the friendship that bloomed into a public thing in the summer of 2001 when Adele made a rare public appearance at a Phoenix Suns game that July, one of the first time fans had seen the singer since she released her third studio album, 25, six years earlier. The star, who tends to go completely off-the-radar when she’s not promoting new music, was spotting sitting close to Paul that night, several years after her public split in 2019 with her ex-husband, Simon Konecki, with whom she shares a son, Angelo.
“Until I became a person of interest,” Paul joked about the early scrutiny about their relationship.
“When you’re in these circles … I never tried to get fresh with people that’s in comfortable circles because they always have to deal with that. So that was never my thing,” he said over a series of photos of the couple at games, as well as at a party where they are raising a toast with Jay-Z and Beyoncé. “It was really something that happened very organically.”
The super agent whose roster includes stars such as NBA legend LeBron James and WNBA Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, said he was, honestly, never really a fan of Adele’s music. “No, not actually. Obviously, you can’t help but to hear the monster hits,” he admitted, adding that he’s much more familiar now, obviously.
It wasn’t love at first sight, from the sounds of it. Paul said that he and Adele didn’t immediately go out on a date or get loved-up once they were introduced, but rather just hung out in the “same circles and we just used to always see each other and laugh and joke.”
Following her run of Adele in Munich stadium shows in August 2024, Adele said she planned to take a long break. “I just need a rest. I have spent seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it now,” she told the crowd at the custom-built Adele Arena during her final show.
Watch Rich talk Adele on Glass Half Full below.
