Sunrise star Matt Doran 'mortified' after $1M Adele interview fail

Sunrise star Matt Doran has said he was "mortified and unequivocally apologetic", after reports surfaced on Sunday that he had 'offended' British superstar Adele when he admitted he hadn't listened to her new album during an exclusive interview.

The Channel Seven reporter had travelled to London to film what was to be Adele’s only Australian TV interview, to promote her first album in six years, 30. It had been reported the singer 'stormed out' after the chat, but Doran insists that was not the case.

Doran reportedly didn’t ask any questions about Adele's new album during the lengthy interview, sources claimed, according to The Daily Telegraph.

"What do you think of my album?" Adele is said to have asked him, to which he replied: "I haven’t listened to it."

The gaffe was said to have outraged her record label Sony, which then refused to allow the network to air the interview as part of its $1million package, that also included broadcast rights to Adele's One Night Only concert and her sit-down with Oprah Winfrey.

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Doran was then reportedly suspended for two weeks by the network, though he told The Australian’s Nick Tabakoff he was never “formally” suspended despite being off the air for one weekend.

The journalist says it all came down to an email he "somehow missed" before the interview, stressing it was not a "deliberate snub".

"When I sat down to interview Adele, I was totally unaware that I’d been emailed a preview of her unreleased album,” Doran told the publication.

"I have since discovered it was sent to me as an ‘e card’ link, which I somehow missed upon landing in London. It was an oversight but NOT a deliberate snub. This is the most important email I have ever missed."

He also said he had told Adele he had heard her single, Easy On Me, “but not the other tracks”, and refuted claims the singer had stormed out after the interview.

"What was meant to be 20 minutes was extended to 29 minutes. The majority of the chat was about the album," he said.

Fans of Adele were quick to call out the journalist on social media, blasting the interview fail, with many also calling on the reporter to take down the happy snap he shared with the team from London beforehand.

"You had one obvious job and you messed up bad," one person wrote on Facebook.

"Basic 101 in subject matter prep for an interview. Lesson learnt," another said.

"Photo taken minutes before disaster,” one person quipped under his pre-Adele London Instagram post.

"This picture did not age well at all," was another comment.

Matt Doran also copped it from fellow journalists and media commentators, with Rosie Waterland writing on Twitter: "I just keep thinking… how bad must the interview have been, that Adele actually asked him if he’d listened to the album? One Google search would’ve revealed it’s about her divorce (at its simplest). He must have been SO wilfully uninterested for it to be obvious he knew nothing."

Marc Fennell added: "Re: Adele/Ch7. I’ve spent over a decade interviewing major actors, musicians around the world. Negotiating access, researching for genuinely interesting convo? That’s the hard part. Literally the *easiest* part is listening to the album on a 14hr (likely biz class) flight."

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