Singer ADELA has broken her silence on a controversy involving her fans after videos circulated showing them ripping down promotional posters of fellow British singer Rachel Chinouriri in London.
On October 14, 2026, ADELA addressed the situation in a message on her Instagram story, saying she had redownloaded TikTok and Instagram and come across the video. The clips, which had already been circulating for more than a week, showed people pulling down Chinouriri's materials so they could take pictures next to ADELA's posters instead.
ADELA was unequivocal in condemning the behaviour. In the message shared by the fan account ADELA Access, she wrote: "i have just redownloaded tik tok + ig and came across this way too late but u guys this is so fu*king a**. please don't do this. don't take ppl's posters down. promotion costs money, rachel's posters cost money, they deserve to be up and seen. it's alr hard enough to make sure ur art gets out there & is heard... ESPECIALLY as a black woman."
Chinouriri had first spoken about the incident publicly on October 2 on X. She explained that the posters represented a significant financial investment after years of work trying to secure proper promotion for her music. She also noted how much more difficult that process remains for Black artists working in pop - a structural inequality that makes fan-driven sabotage particularly painful.
Rather than simply lament the damage, Chinouriri took matters into her own hands: she bought a replacement poster and installed it herself, sharing a short video of the process on her YouTube channel and posting about buying the new one on X. In her original October 2 post, she also mentioned that her new release, "I Think I Spoke Too Soon," was scheduled for October 16.
The incident has sparked a wider conversation about fan culture and the economics of being an independent artist. Physical poster campaigns remain one of the few ways for artists outside the major-label machine to claim visibility in cities like London - and they are expensive. For an artist like Chinouriri, who has spoken openly about the years of work it took to secure proper promotional backing, seeing that investment torn down by another artist's fans felt like a personal attack on her livelihood.
ADELA's response was widely praised for its directness. By naming the racial dimension - "ESPECIALLY as a black woman" - she acknowledged that the incident was not just about etiquette but about the unequal terrain on which artists compete for attention.
Neither artist has suggested there is any personal animosity between them; the controversy is entirely about fan behaviour, and both have used the moment to advocate for basic respect within music fandom.