3-year-old’s take on Adele goes viral

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published Dec. 17, 2015.

Right now, who’s bigger than Adele?

In Great Falls, one spunky little 3-year-old girl is giving the best-selling singer a run for her money.

A video of Kimber Green singing Adele’s latest anthem, “Hello,” as a present for her mother on her birthday has been viewed on Facebook about 9 million times.

Hello, indeed.

In the video, Kimber starts out strumming a white cardboard guitar and singing softly along with a recording of Adele, but then midway through the rendition, Kimber stands up on the couch and starts belting it out in her footie pajamas.

“We cried because she was so emotional,” her mother, Kalynn Cooke, said. “She just sang it from her soul. She must be an old soul because I’ve never seen a 3-year-old sing a song like that.”

Later, Cooke describes the performance: “It looks like she’s been through a million heartbreaks.”

Kimber’s performance touched more than a few hearts.

Shot by Cooke and her husband Reece’s roommate Ja’Michael Murphy on Cooke’s birthday/Thanksgiving Day, Murphy posted it on his Facebook page on Dec. 2. As requested, he tagged Cooke.

Right away, it started getting a lot of views. As many cute-kid videos do. As many others of Kimber had before.

“I was so excited when it reached 1,000 views,” Cooke remembered. “I was like, my whole family must be watching it. Then all of a sudden …”

Cooke said it reached a million views in just a couple of days, and Murphy and Cooke were getting hundreds of friend requests a day.

It seems everybody has seen it, now.

“I went to the mall today,” Cooke said Wednesday afternoon, “and people are just stopping us and saying, ‘Oh, gosh you’re Kimber.’”

And Kimber knows it.

“I’m just, so, so famous,” Cooke quotes her daughter as saying. “And she gets all sassy about it, but she doesn’t grasp that millions of people have seen her.”

Kimber had been deprived of a nap Wednesday because of a long appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles, so she was being a bit of a diva.

“Who sings ‘Hello?’” Cooke asked her daughter, who ignored the question.

“Adele?”

“No,” answered Kimber.

“You’re being cranky.”

“I’m not cranky.”

“You’re just 3?”

“Yeah, but I’m happy,” she informed her mom.

Cooke shook her head.

“She is not a shy child,” Cooke said. “She’s not just hanging out. She’s front and center, stealing the show.”

And that show can range from country to old rock ’n’ roll to hip-hop as she sings anything from Josh Turner to Justin Bieber.

For Halloween, Kimber went as Miranda Lambert.

“I got her a big, old blond wig, big red bow in her hair with and a little flannel and a shirt that said Mama Tried and her sparkle boots,” Cooke said. “And I spray-painted her a little red wagon.”

Upon hearing the words, little red wagon, Kimber immediately breaks into a perfect version of Lambert’s “Little Red Wagon.”

Both Cooke and Kimber’s father, David Green, are musical as are numerous other members of the family, Cooke said.

Kimber immediately starts swaying as soon as she hears music.

“I don’t want to clip her wings as to what she wants to do,” Cooke said. “So, if that means I dance with her in the middle of the grocery aisle, that’s what I do.”

Kimber can pick up a song after listening to it just a few times.

But she has more aspirations than being just a singer.

“A doctor-singer,” she says. “And I’ll help somebody if moms have babies.”

And she explains more fully.

“When I grow up, I want to be a doctor, and I’ll have shots,” she said, pausing for a little emphasis. “Shots hurt babies.”

But as for the pain and heartbreak in that performance?

Well, Kimber’s best friend, Dawson, and her wear rings when they are together, but trouble bubbled up recently.

“Dawson said, ‘No, I will not marry you,” Kimber said, with indignation.