Adele breaks down in tears as old teacher surprises her during TV performance

22 November 2021, 09:51

Adele breaks down as she has emotional reunion with old schoolteacher in ITV special

By Alice Dear

Adele broke down as soon as she realised her old English teacher, Miss McDonald, was in the crowd of her on-off ITV special An Audience with Adele.

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Adele, 33, took to the stage this weekend for a one-off TV special where she debuted tracks from her latest album '30' to an audience of fans, friends, family and a handful of celebrities.

And while it was Adele who was meant to be surprising the crowd with her new music, it was in fact the Rolling In The Deep, Hometown Glory and Easy On Me hitmaker who was given the biggest surprise.

During the show, where audience members were given the chance to ask the singer some questions, actress Emma Thompson quizzed her about her inspirations when she was younger.

Emma asked her: "My question is, when you were younger, was there someone who, kind of supported you and inspired you, or, you know protected you from all the trials and tribulations of life and inspired you to go on?"

Adele was overcome with emotion as she saw Miss McDonald walking up to the stage. Picture: ITV

Adele replied to the actress: "Yeah I had a teacher at Chestnut Grove who taught me English. That was Miss McDonald.

"She left when I was in year eight. It was just one year, but she got me really into literature. I've always been obsessed with English and obviously now I write lyrics."

She continued: "She was so bloody cool. So engaging, she really made us care and we knew she cared about us."

Adele and Miss McDonald embraced as they were reunited after years. Picture: ITV

At this point, Emma started to reveal the surprise as she said: "Yeah because it's odd actually, funny enough...", before revealing: "She's here tonight."

Miss McDonald could then be seen walking from the crowd towards Adele, who looked overcome with emotion as she reunited with her inspiration teacher.

As they hugged, the teacher could be heard saying to Adele: "Oh my god, I'm so proud of you".

The pair caught up on stage, where Miss McDonald told Adele she had welcomed two children since they last saw each other.

Adele then told her that she had kept all her books from when she was her teacher.

Miss McDonald told Adele how proud she was of her. Picture: ITV

Viewers were left as emotional as Adele at the scenes, with one person commenting online: "I CRIED AT THIS REUNION. THE MOST PRECIOUS MOMENT FROM THE SHOW!!!"

Another posted: "Honestly what a precious moment. that teacher must've felt the PROUDEST!!! I'm so glad they arranged this reunion."

A third person wrote: "This was completely AWESOME! I started crying for the beautiful reunion and finished crying because the laugh."

Following the event, Adele shared some pictures on her Twitter from the evening, writing: "Home Sweet Home. I’ve always dreamt of doing An Audience With… There was so much love in the room for eachother, it felt like such a gig! Everyone was raucous and bang up for it! And my teacher Ms McDonald was there, it was just heaven."