Just two months after the New Yorker mentioned that LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul was “hanging out” with a “major pop star,” it looks like we now know the identity of the unnamed singer.
Late Saturday night, hours after Paul was spotted courtside with Adele at Game 5 of the NBA Finals, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst dropped a bombshell on NBA insider Zach Lowe’s podcast.
“Rich Paul brings his girlfriend to the game to sit next to LeBron. His girlfriend is Adele,” Windhorst said on The Lowe Post. “Rich Paul is at the game with Adele. … This is the first time that they’ve come out in public together. So this will be all over the tabloids, especially in England tomorrow.”
The news arrives just four months after Adele finalized her divorce from ex-husband Simon Konecki. After five years of dating, which was highlighted by the birth of their son in 2012, the couple tied the knot in 2016. In April 2019, Adele seperated from Konecki and later that year filed for divorce.
Given Adele’s illustrious standing in the music industry, it’s worth noting that Paul has at least one impressive accomplishment in a similar space. During an interview with Rap Radar in December 2019, Drake credited the Klutch Sports Group founder with helping him pick the lead single for his 2009 mixtape, So Far Gone.
Drake initially wanted “Uptown” to be the first single from the project, but Paul convinced him that “Best I Ever Had” was the better choice. “I was like, ‘Yo ‘Uptown’ is the one, this is what we should go with,’” Drake explained at the 13:07 mark in the interview. “He was like, ‘Yo, nah. What are you talking about? This other one is the one.’”
