Who Gained From ADÉLA's 'Nicole Kidman'? On Wikipedia, the Singer Now Outdraws the Star

On 1 October, 13,950 people opened the English Wikipedia page of ADÉLA, the Slovak singer, and 12,747 opened the page of Nicole Kidman, the actress she named her song after. It was the fourth day running that the singer drew more readers than the star, and the eighth of the last ten. In August, before the song was out, Kidman's page averaged 13,624 readers a day and ADÉLA's 5,900.

“Nicole Kidman” came out on 4 September as the second track of PRIMA, ADÉLA's debut album on Capitol Records, written with Julia Michaels, Uffie, Billy Walsh and its two producers, Blake Slatkin and Dylan Brady. Four weeks later it stood at No. 3 on Spotify's global daily chart, and the searches typed with its name ask two things: what it means, and what it samples.

A night in a corset

ADÉLA has said the idea came from a Golden Globes party in January, where she wore a corset so tight it made her feel like a film star for a night, and the star she had in mind was Kidman. The song is that night stretched over three minutes. The chorus is a nightly check that the outfit sits right, and it names two Kidman films: Moulin Rouge!, for the corset, and Babygirl, the 2024 film, for the feeling of being in control. The verses are the getting-ready montage: shoes chosen by brand, a long look in the mirror, a driver waiting outside, a quick stop for the photographers and gone. Near the end she asks not to be interrupted and jokes about a vanity license plate.

One detail is easy to miss. The lyric never sings the surname. We counted “Nicole” eight times and “Kidman” not once; the full name lives only in the title, and that is the name ADÉLA has said she cleared with the actress's team before release.

The 1986 record underneath

The beat is built on “In My Father's House”, a track from Praise Him, a 1986 album by the gospel group God's Gospel Angels. Rap found it first: Boldy James used the same record on “Terms and Conditions” in 2024, produced by Conductor Williams, and G Herbo used it on “Fallen Soldiers” in 2025. We found no account from Slatkin or Brady of what they did with it, so we measured.

Two separate YouTube uploads of the 1986 track both read about 136 beats per minute, in B major. The official audio of “Nicole Kidman” reads about 144 beats per minute, in C major. Those two pairs fit together in one particular way. Play a recording about 6 percent faster and everything in it rises by one semitone, and one semitone is exactly the step from B to C. Our readings point to the old record being sped up whole rather than replayed by musicians. Tempo and key detection are estimates, and nobody involved has confirmed it, so take this as our measurement, not a credit.

The source itself has barely moved. The two uploads of “In My Father's House” we found had 13,507 views between them on 2 October. The official video for “Nicole Kidman” had 16,286,460.

Five films and a cinema

That video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis, walks through Kidman's screen history: To Die For, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge!, Birth and Babygirl. It closes in a cinema, popcorn in hand, in the beam of a projector, the setting of the AMC Theatres advert Kidman has fronted since 2021. That is the scene at the top of this page.

We sorted the 40 comments YouTube ranks highest under the video. Six are about the Kidman references, with 20,388 likes in total. Three bring up Dream Academy or KATSEYE, with 18,107. Not one mentions Slovakia.

Who ADÉLA is

ADÉLA is Adéla Jergová, from Bratislava. In 2023 she was a contestant on The Debut: Dream Academy, the HYBE and Geffen talent show that produced KATSEYE, and she was among the first voted out. She signed to Capitol in 2025, released “Red Bottoms” in April and “Ain't in LA” in July, and named her current tour after the first of them.

Kidman knew about the song before it came out. At the London premiere of Practical Magic 2 on 26 August, a fan asked her about it, and she said she knew who ADÉLA was and planned to see her show in Nashville on 21 September. We found no report that she went.

Bigger abroad than at home

On the Spotify daily charts we read on 2 October, “Nicole Kidman” was No. 1 in the United Arab Emirates, No. 2 in Singapore and No. 3 in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In Slovakia it was No. 5, and in the Czech Republic next door No. 21. Apple Music has it a little higher at home, No. 3 in Slovakia, but higher still, No. 2, in the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, New Zealand and Singapore.

If the famous name were the whole trick, interest would have peaked in the first days and drained away. ADÉLA's Wikipedia page did peak on release day, with 20,713 readers on 4 September, and has eased since. The song has gone the other way. On YouTube's latest weekly song chart it climbed from No. 40 to No. 16 in the United States and from No. 26 to No. 11 in Canada, and Shazam users in the United States still had it at No. 10, which means people are still meeting it for the first time a month in.

Our read: the name opened the door, and the song kept people in the room. Borrowing a star's name is usually a bet on the star, and here the numbers say it paid the borrower. ADÉLA's English Wikipedia readers over the last seven days were 2.7 times her August average; Kidman's were up about a tenth. Our bet, and it is only a bet: ADÉLA's page stays ahead of Kidman's through October, unless Kidman turns up at one of her shows, which would lift both.