Francis Specker/CBSAdele‘s tribute to George Michael at Sunday night’s Grammys was both emotional and memorable: she stopped and re-started her performance of “Fastlove” because she wanted it to be perfect for her hero. But if the original concept for the tribute had happened, Adele wouldn’t have been alone on that stage, and she wouldn’t have been singing “Fastlove.”
According to Billboard, George’s manager originally wanted the tribute to include James Corden, Adele, Beyonce and Rihanna, each singing a verse from one of his songs — including “Freedom” and “One More Try” — as a mashup.
But Grammys Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich tells Billboard, it became obvious “how passionate Adele was” about the tribute, adding, “She had a vision for what she wanted to do with it.”
At the Grammys, Adele told reporters she was “devastated” when George died on Christmas Day. The next day, she says she told her partner Simon, “I have to do that tribute.” Even though his family didn’t want a tribute at first, she explained, they then decided they wanted her, and only her, to do it.
According to Ehrlich, Adele and George’s attorney picked the images of the singer used during the tribute. She sang “Fastlove” because, she said, she’d loved the song since she was 10.
“I heard the vulnerability in that song, especially in the [part]…where it goes from being about one night stands and being a little bit sleazy to saying, ‘In the absence of security/I made my way into the night’ and I lost my way, basically,” she told reporters.
She then clarified, “I didn’t relate to that when I was 10…that’d be weird!”
Even before the Grammys, Adele fans knew how much she admired George: a few years ago at her birthday party, she dressed in drag as him.
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