Adele: ‘My Stage Fright Is Getting Worse’

Singer Adele is still struggling to conquer her nerves before live performances, confessing her anxieties are “actually getting worse.”

The “Hello” singer has been busy promoting her new album, 25, in recent weeks, and she performed her first U.S. concert since 2011 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on November 17.

The gig, which was attended by stars including new pal Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Steven Spielberg, was filmed for an upcoming U.S. TV special and Adele admits it took her a few minutes to settle down onstage in front of so many adoring fans.

Adele confesses she was trying to keep her cool as the curtains parted, but she couldn’t keep a straight face for long.

“I was trying to be deadpan, like, trying to be a diva, and I couldn’t!” she told the Today show. “I just saw the crowd and I melted. I was so happy to be there. I was very, very nervous. After about the second or third song, I was chilled, I was alright.”

The star has yet to find any remedies for her stage fright and she worries it’s hindering her creative process onstage.

“(I get) so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new,” she told NPR. “It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”

And Adele reveals her nerves also make her a nightmare for managers to deal with.

“(When I’m nervous I’m) fidgety, I moan, I complain, I try and escape, I try to get out, belch…!” she laughed.

The singer had extra reason to make sure she delivered a pitch-perfect show in New York City last week as it marked the first full Adele concert her boyfriend, Simon Konecki, had attended.

“The first time he saw me was at the (2012) Grammys, which was the first time I’d opened my mouth to sing after my surgery (in 2011),” she recalled. “It was his first whole show that he’s seen and he loved it, it was such a great moment. He approved. Even if it was rubbish I think he’d approve!”