Fan recalls ‘bittersweet’ surprise of being FaceTimed by Adele amid postponement

On Thursday, hundreds of Adele fans found themselves in quite the predicament when the singer announced that she'll be postponing her Las Vegas residency one day before it was scheduled to kick off.

In an emotional video that the "Easy On Me" singer posted to Instagram, Adele tearfully cited COVID-19 as the reason why she had to halt production.

“I’m so sorry but my show ain’t ready,” she said while wiping tears away from her face. “Half my crew, half my team is down with COVID. They still are, and it’s been impossible to finish the show. And I can’t give you what I have right now, and I’m gutted.”

At the time, Dominic Crisonino, a long-time Adele fan was making his way to the Sin City from New York. He didn't realize that his favorite singer canceled her show until he got through TSA at John F. Kennedy International Airport and received an Instagram notification on his phone.

"I think anyone would be lying if they said that they weren't a little bit upset," he told TODAY.

But after watching her sentimental video, the 24-year-old sympathized with the "Oh My God" artist. He just found it a little "weird" that she was making this announcement at the last second, especially since Katy Perry kicked off her Las Vegas residency without a hitch in December 2021.

"I was personally contemplating, like, 'Should I even go? Should we just try to see if we can get a refund for the flight? We can just go another time,'" he said about what he and his friends were planning on doing. "Then we were like, 'Well, you know what? We're already in the airport so we might as well just go."

Crisonino said that was the best decision he could have ever made.

Although he and his pals didn't get to see Adele perform, Crisonino did get to FaceTime with Adele when he decided to take a little trip to her gift shop at Caesars Palace — and he said the whole thing happened by accident.

After walking the strip with his buddies, Crisonino thought it would be best to just "rip the band-aid off" and pay a visit to Adele's store, which he knew was opening up that evening. Once there, he came across a woman who complimented him on his nails. After telling her that his mom has been painting his fingertips every week since the pandemic happened, the unnamed woman asked if it was OK for her to take a photo of his nails and tweet about it online.

Crisonino agreed, exited the store, and didn't think anything of it.

It wasn't until Adele gave him a personal shout-out on Twitter that he realized the anonymous woman was actually a member of her team.

Crisonino first tweeted out a photo posing with an ad for Adele's residency. Frowning for the camera, he captioned the photo "What my weekend with Adele is looking like" and added #mood as a text overlay on the pic. It started to go viral because of its sheer honesty, and then the photo really went viral after what happened next.

Adele responded, writing, "Your mum did such a good job on your nails!! Keep that tux steamed and crisp my love for when I come back! I appreciate you so much, I’m so sorry."

Crisonino said the whole thing made him feel like he was having an out-of-body experience. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, OK. That was crazy,' you know?"

Things got even better for the New Yorker when he went back up to the woman and thanked her for her tweet.

"The woman who had taken the photos of my nails had pulled me aside and brought me into a tiny corner," Crisonino recalled. "And then, she pulls out her phone and she hits the FaceTime button and she FaceTimes Adele! So within a couple of seconds, Adele was on the phone FaceTiming me and I was like, 'Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry.'"

"And she was like, 'Why are you sorry?' And we were just chatting and you know, we had about three and a half minutes, which it literally felt like it was 20 minutes because she was just so genuine."

Crisonino's friends got the whole thing on video, which he later shared on Instagram with the caption, "WHAT IS LIFE 🤯🤍."

As luck would have it, Crisonino was one of a few lucky people who got to FaceTime with the Grammy winner at the gift shop. He described the whole thing as a "bittersweet experience" and the best part about his call was when Adele promised him a "meet-and-greet" when her Las Vegas residency is back up and running.

"I was like, 'Oh. OK!' I mean, who would ever expect that to come of this?'" he said. "Who would even expect this conversation to be a thing in the first place?"

Adele's boyfriend, Rich Paul, even made a special appearance during the FaceTime chat.

"But I mean, the whole thing was just out of a movie," Crisonino added. "It just doesn't happen in normal life. It's crazy."

TikToker MOMO, (@momoboyd), also shared a sweet moment that her sister had with Adele online. After singing for her in what appeared to be a church, her sister read a sentimental letter she wrote for the star.

"I think I speak for many when I say we're grateful for your life, and when I say your life, I really mean me," she said, adding, "Please keep on shining."

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