Reclusive pop megastar Sade now has very different life in hugely different career
Nearly 40 years on from bursting onto the charts, 80s and 90s pop megastar Sade Abu looks as though a day hasn't passed despite her career change
From being the icon behind "Smooth Operator" to moving to Somerset soil, soul icon Sade Adu has traded her global stardom found in the 1980s for a quieter life living in the rural West Country.
Born in Nigeria as Helen Folasade Adu, but going on to be known simply as Sade Adu, she moved to Colchester to live with her grandparents at just four. She would spend most of her early years growing up in and around Essex.
But that would all change when she and her band became overnight sensations after the release of their first smooth soul single, "Your Love is King," which reached number six on the charts in 1984. Their debut album, Diamond Life, would go on to garner even more acclaim, selling an astonishing 10million records and standing the test of time four decades after its release.
Sade was a hit with critics too, having received four Grammy's for her hits, including being crowned as the Best New Artist in 1986 after the release of their second album. Around this time the singer would also take a brief career pivot on the big screen, making her acting debut in Absolute Beginners, a film about 1950s London.
But during the next two decades and after releasing some of the biggest songs of the time, Sade would go global, with singles like "Smooth Operator" "The Sweetest Taboo" and "No Ordinary Love" her voice resonated from radios across the world. The tracks are still a hit to this day having been listened to more than a billion times on Spotify alone.
But with the band releasing albums extremely sporadically often leaving decades in between releases, the star became known as somewhat of a recluse, often disappearing from the spotlight for years at a time.
Now it appears Sade has continued her path towards a quieter life, having bought a farm in the West Country where she lived during the pandemic alongside her partner Ian Watts and her mum "Granny Annie".
Speaking to British Vogue in 2020, the singer reflected: "Like everyone, we're on a ship of unknown destination but that's life … no mutiny yet.
"There's always so much to do: there are songs I so want to write, and I've rediscovered the joy cooking brings."
Despite her rural life away from the limelight, the musician is still making music, most recently releasing the single "Young Lion" in 2024 as well as "Flower of the Universe" for the Disney film A Wrinkle in Time starring Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey.
In 2002 she would be cemented as a national treasure by being honoured with an OBE in 2002 on the Queen's New Years Honours List and 15 years later she would gain an even higher honour by being given a CBE for her services to music.
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