Even though he abandoned her mom and her, she gave him chances to be a better dad, but he kept disappointing her every step of the way.
Daughters want their fathers to be the one who walks them down the aisle. We want them to be present for our graduation. We want them sharing a meal with us during the holidays. We want them playing with our children. We want them in our life. But, some fathers don't deserve to be called fathers at all. They are just men who have inflicted deep emotional scars on us, from a young age much before we learned that the world is a difficult place.
Singer Adele, who gave her father multiple chances even though he disappointed her every time, is not ready to give him any more chances. She made that clear during a public speech in 2017 and her father, Marc Evans, learned that an unloved daughter will stop trying to make excuses for you if you don't do better.
In 2017, she won five awards including Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the Grammy's becoming the first artist ever to win the "hat-trick" twice after her 2012 success. During her speech, the Hello singer thanked her long-time manager, Jonathan Dickins, and said that he was the father figure in her life.
"Thank you to my manager because the comeback, as it were, was completely masterminded by him. And you executed it incredibly, and I owe you everything. We’ve been together for 10 years, and I love you like you’re my dad. I love you so, so much. I don’t love my dad, that’s the thing. That doesn’t mean a lot. I love you like I would love my dad," she said, according to Sun UK.
Her speech was a window into her painful relationship with her father, who abandoned her mother and her when she was three. And this relationship turned tumultuous long before his 2011 infamous interview blaming her relationship problems to abandonment issues.
"He’s... blown it. He will never hear from me again. It makes me angry. To come back after 10 years and be like, ‘Maybe her problem with men comes down to me.' It’s like, ‘How dare you comment on my life?’ It makes my blood boil," the furious singer had said after the interview, during which he made many tall claims.
Only after his daughter became a multi-millionaire singer did he realize how much he loved and missed her. He tried to take the credit for her love for music when it had been her mother's upbringing that got her here.
It was in 1987 that a 20-something Evans met Adele's mother Penny Adkins, a teenage art student in a North London pub. The couple moved in together and a year later, Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on May 5, 1988. There was no peace in that home and he left for Wales when Adele was three. Eventually, Adkins moved to South London with Adele and struggled to make a living as her father did not give regular payments to his ex-wife for raising her. As a single mother, she worked as a masseuse, furniture maker, and office administrator, according to BBC.
Evans wasn't completely out of her life as she was in touch with him as a child and got to see him when she spent her summer holidays in South Wales, where he was from. However, her father did not bother spending much time with Adele. In 1999, when his father (Adele's grandfather), John, passed away, both father and daughter were devastated. Unlike a loving father, he focused only on his pain and did not provide her any support.
"[My depression] started when my granddad died, when I was about 10, and while I never had a suicidal thought, I have been in therapy, lots," the Rolling in the Deep singer told Vanity Fair in 2016.
When she was 15, he tried to mend the relationship and she accepted his apology. She gave him another chance and they even started seeing each other occasionally. However, the 2011 interview he gave after she became famous made it clear he had blown all chances of reconciliation.
"I was a rotten father to her and I guess now I’m paying the price," said Evans to The Sun UK. “I was a rotten father at a time when she really needed me,” he said, in another interview with the same paper. “I was not there for my daughter when I should have been and I have regretted that every second of every day to this moment now. It tears me up inside,” he added.
Their relationship continues to be fraught with emotional gaps and the Set Fire to the Rain singer hasn't tried to extend an olive branch.
References:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/adeles-dad-mark-evans-begs-1143281
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/10/adele-cover-story
