Woman Whose Divorce Made Adele Cry at Her Concert Reveals All About Grief

"I wanted to celebrate that moment. The day had finally come. The paperwork was being signed," recalls Rebecca Feinglos on the Las Vegas party that celebrated her divorce.

Feinglos and her friends gained viral attention after their celebration brought the Grammy-winning star Adele to tears during a night at her Weekends With Adele residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

The group had set out to celebrate together as part of 33-year-old Feinglos' year of embracing the grief she had been trying so hard to ignore.

Her mother died of brain cancer when she was just a child, and her father died on the first day of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Following this, her marriage to her husband of six years also ended and Feinglos found herself facing almost unimaginable loss.

How To Deal With Divorce Grief

At the end of 2021, she quit her job and embarked on a mission—every day in 2022 she was going to do at least one thing to grieve. When Feinglos embarked on what she dubbed "Grieve Leave," she never guessed it would take her where it did.

"It started as an idea a year and a half ago that maybe I might feel better, less overwhelmed in my life, if I spent time focusing on my grief for all of these different losses," Feinglos told Newsweek. "For the deaths of my parents, for the end of my marriage, for leaving a job that I loved, for what we lost during the pandemic. It's a lot of grief. A lot of loss. And I wasn't talking about it."

Professionally successful, Feinglos recalls her "head down and hustle" attitude that drove her to the peak of her career before she made the decision to leave it all behind. "I had a job that I loved. I worked at the highest levels of state government. I had studied for this, I had worked for this. But I was really unhappy," she explained.

"It is a privilege that I could walk away and focus on my mental health and wellness," she said. "I wanted to talk about and explore all of this pain that I was feeling. I'd never talked about my mom's death. I hadn't fully processed that my dad had died."

From this, the Grieve Leave movement was born. In a blog, Feinglos detailed a year of living, growing and sitting with grief, publicly sharing the ups and downs of death, divorce and change.

"I just had a feeling that other people might be able to connect and that it might help other people to feel seen," she said. "The thing about grief is that we all feel, in those moments of loss, like we're the only one in the world who has ever experience that kind of pain. Because we have a lot of shame around grief—but it doesn't have to be that way."

'She Made Me Feel Like I Wasn't a Failure for Getting Divorced'

In the last year, Feinglos has shared the ins-and-outs of a year of grieving—from volunteering at a camp for kids grieving their own losses, to deleting photos of her ex. But a stand-out moment was the viral video of her divorce party that found its way around the world.

"When I made the choice to leave the relationship I thought that was going to be the scariest part," she said. "I thought that was the bravest thing and then I thought it would be over."

But as things turned out, there was a lot more to a divorce. "My state—North Carolina—is one of the most challenging to get divorced in," she explained. "So on top of all of that the legal process of just divorcing was traumatic. At the end of it all, I wanted to celebrate that moment."

With the encouragement of her friends, the group set out to celebrate the moment she was finally finished with the divorce process.

"My friends really encouraged me to celebrate that moment of surviving and getting through it. And I wanted to bring them together, to celebrate them and thank them for supporting me through what were the most difficult years of my life," said Feinglos.

The group of 13 women from around the country packed up and headed to Las Vegas to see "Someone Like You" singer Adele in some of her first residency shows.

"Her album 30 was about her divorce and I felt like she was singing that album for me," said Feinglos. "When she came out with that album, very publicly proclaiming 'I got divorced and here is my pain,' she made me feel like I wasn't a failure for getting divorced. She made me feel more normal.

"So I bring my girls together—the girls that supported me through my divorce—and we said let's go to Vegas and see Adele."

It was here that Feinglos' friend was noticed while Adele walked through the crowd and spoke to her friend. "At this point I am just freaking out, jumping up and down and screaming," she said. "Then at the end of the concert Adele stops everyone and everything and points to me and talks to me in front of the audience and says that what I did bringing my friends really speaks to her."

"In that moment, I just felt like Adele was so human and so connected and that she and I both connected in our grief and our pain," said Feinglos who spent the concert holding a sign that read "you got me through my divorce."

After the concert, Feinglos shared the moment on TikTok where it received over 1.4 million views.

"I made that TikTok to share that moment of openly talking about pain and grief and loss and not being afraid of it," she said. "We can't let our pain win. Whether it's the loss of someone we love through a death or a breakup or if it's losing a job—all of that pain and loss, all of that grief. We can connect with each other through grief and through that pain instead of letting it consume us."

Should You Have a Divorce Party?

While a divorce party isn't as common as your usual bachelorette, it is something that Feinglos believes more people should embrace.

"Everyone is different in their grief," she said. "It isn't for everyone, but for some people I could see celebrating getting through that really fulfilling."

"There were a lot of tears on that weekend," she said. "Feelings of relief, gratitude, sadness. It was about feeling it all. And wearing a tiara and sparkly boots."

But is it fair to celebrate the end of a relationship? Do such parties hurt or offend the other party in a broken-down relationship? Feinglos says it isn't that simple.

"This weekend wasn't about my ex," she said. "This weekend was about celebrating my friends, my people and getting through a time that was really hard.

"There was no negative energy toward my ex in any way. It was about us. It was about women coming together. It was really positive."

For her, celebrating the end of her marriage was about celebrating the good things to come.

"Just because my marriage ended doesn't mean it was a failure. I don't think my marriage was a failure, we did everything we could to make it work and it wasn't right," she said. "And I'm so much happier for it ending, and that is good. To me, that is what a divorce party is about."

Now at the end of the initial year of Grieve Leave, Feinglos is looking to a future where she hopes Grieve Leave can continue to be a movement for good.

"I want to keep teaching and advocating for grief and openly grieving," she said. "I want to create space for people who are grieving to come together."

Through her blog and social media, she continues to share all elements of loss, grief and change.

"I think we can't talk enough about grief and grieving as a society," she said.

Correction: 1/9/23 5:35 a.m. ET: This article has been corrected to say that Feinglos shared her story on TikTok not Twitter.

Update: 1/9/23 6:35 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with new images.