NEW YORK • Parts of Adele's much anticipated new album, 25, were reported on Wednesday to have been leaked online ahead of its official release today.

The British singer's 2011 album, 21, won six Grammy awards and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and 25 is expected to be this year's biggest selling album.

An Adele fan posted on Twitter on Tuesday a photo of what looked like the CD of the new album, claiming it was obtained at a Target store.

The fan, with the Twitter handle @HausofFrancis, invited followers to "retweet if you want me to leak it". The fan later posted what appeared to be a tweet from Adele's record label, XL Recordings, ordering the removal of the "infringing material" and threatening legal action.

"25 leaked and it wasn't me," @HausofFrancis tweeted on Wednesday. Target said it was not responsible. "This is not a Target album," the retailer said.

Representatives for independent label XL and for Adele, who recorded a concert in New York City on Tuesday night, did not return requests for comment.

In a separate case, two-minute snippets of all 11 tracks from the album were reported to have been briefly available online late on Tuesday through a British online record store. The link was taken down on Wednesday.

Billboard magazine estimated last month that 25 could sell up to 1.8 million units in North America alone in its first week of sale.

The first single from the album, Hello, smashed digital sales records by selling 1.1 million copies in its first week of release last month. Its music video broke records at entertainment platform Vevo.com, with more than 27 million views in the first 24 hours after its release.

A second single, When We Were Young, was released on Tuesday and has already been viewed more than seven million times on streaming platform Vevo.

REUTERS