Soul icon Sade has a new daughter-in-law. The singer’s son, model and artist Izaak Theo Adu-Watts, married his longtime love, hairdresser and artist Emily Margaret Shakeshaft, in April in Hawaii, The New York Times reports.
The couple first met on Instagram back in 2019 after Shakeshaft, 24, reached out to Adu, 24, a transgender man, to send her support.
That year, Adu-Watts had gone public about the emotional toll of transitioning from female to male. “This process is trying, tiring, painful, emotionally exhausting, physically exhausting, uncomfortable (like I can’t sleep like a normal human being rn lol),” he wrote at the time. “I often ask myself ‘why the fuck do I have to endure this to be who I am, but at the end of the day this is the path that was laid out for me and I’ll walk it to the end.” At the time that she first reached out, unbeknownst to Adu-Watts, Shakeshaft had been following him quietly for years on Instagram. Her intention at the time was simply to extend her well wishes.
“I actually initially messaged him to congratulate him,” Shakeshaft told the Times. “I was so proud of him fighting so hard to get to where he is now. I consider myself a straight woman so it’s also something the straight community needs to understand, when you are trans, you are that gender not something separate.”
After growing their relationship via text messages and FaceTime conversations, Adu-Watts traveled from England to California so they could meet in person. They’ve been together and inseperable ever since, and after getting engaged in May 2020, on April 16th the pair made it official and tied the knot in
The couple told The Times that they originally planned to elope in New York on Nov. 13, 2020, a year to the day that they met in person, but the pandemic derailed those plans.
The couple made last-minute plans to marry in Hawaii in a nontraditional ceremony with no family or guests, only the bride’s mother, whom they asked to officiate their intimate ceremony. Sade told the Times she approved of their choice to get married privately, and the groom said he believe his mom is always there by his side.
“Wherever I am, I always feel like my mom is with me,” Adu-Watts told the paper. “Just the day before we got married we were driving into town and right in front of us was a license plate HFS444. My mom’s initials, Helen Folasade Sade.”
Congrats to the happy couple.