Adele said the strategy helped her give her best to every performance during her breakout year.Īlthough the embodiment of a fictional persona may seem like a gimmick for pop stars, new research suggests there may be some real psychological benefits to the strategy. The persona was a combination of Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce persona and the (real) country music star June Carter. Inspired by an emotional meeting with Beyoncé herself, Adele followed suit, telling Rolling Stone magazine in 2011 about her creation of ‘Sasha Carter’.

It was a strategy that she continued to use until 2010, when she felt she had matured enough to avoid the psychological crutch. “Usually when I hear the chords, when I put on my stilettos, like the moment right before when you’re nervous… then Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different,” she told Oprah Winfrey in 2008. How do the world’s top stars muster the poise and determination to stand on stage, despite the nerves and anxiety of having a bad performance? For both Beyoncé and Adele, the secret has been the creation of an alter ego.īeyoncé’s was the assertive and empowered ‘Sasha Fierce’, who allowed her to perform with extra self-confidence and sensuality. Read our full list of the year’s top stories here.

As we head into 2021, Worklife is running our best, most insightful and most essential stories from 2020.

Amazon alter ego game