Adele and her beardy boyfriend

She enjoys the accolade of having the biggest selling UK album of the 21st century and has won an army of followers with her torch songs.

But while fans of Brit-nominated pop star Adele, 23, share her delight at finding happiness with new love Simon Konecki, the path to romantic bliss is not entirely without domestic complications.

For bearded Old Etonian entrepreneur Konecki has already experienced married life, having wed fashion stylist Clary Fisher in the summer of 2004. The couple, who have parted, have a five-year-old daughter.

The singer — full name Adele Adkins — is devoted to Simon, known as ‘Swampy’ to his friends, who is 14 years her senior.

When he married Clary, a London College of Fashion graduate, he was a director of the EBS group, an investment holding company.

The pair moved in glamorous social circles, counting multi-millionaire property figure Anton Bilton, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’s son Jamie and Lucas White, the party-loving playboy son of the late industrialist Lord ‘Gordy’ White, among their pals.

But after Konecki left the City, to set up an eco-company with White, his marriage failed.

Despite moving to his home town of Brighton with Clary and the birth of their daughter, the couple grew apart. Grammy award-winning Adele, who is recovering from surgery on her vocal cords, was introduced to her new beau by singer Ed Sheeran a couple of months ago.

Their backgrounds could not be more different. While Adele was raised by her single mother and went to an inner-city primary in Tottenham, Konecki was sent to Eton, where contemporaries included Tom Parker Bowles and Bear Grylls.

His parents live in a $1.5 million waterfront house in Florida, and his sisters went to posh Roedean.

According to friends, Konecki is in the process of divorcing. He and his wife separated in 2010.

When approached, Clary, who lives in Sussex and still uses her married name, refused to comment. A spokesperson for Adele did not respond to requests to clarify Konecki’s marital status.

by Wallace McTavish

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