'But seriously, you know the truth': Stevie Wonder addresses conspiracy theory that he isn't actually blind
Stevie Wonder has just completed a short UK tour and at one of the dates – at Cardiff Blackweir Fields – he addressed the long standing conspiracy theory that he isn't, in fact, blind.
Yes, it case you don't regularly frequent the more out-there crevices of the Internet, there are, in fact, people who believe that for the past 60-odd years Stevie has been having us all on, that he's merely pretending to be blind, presumably to illicit sympathy and throw a more positive light upon his music. As if his astounding run of albums in the 1970s weren't incredible enough achievements in themselves.
Some people will believe anything. But let's not blame it all on the Internet – the equally ridiculous 'Paul is dead' myth that alleged that Paul McCartney had died in 1966 and an imposter had somehow stood in for him to write and record large swathes of Sgt Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road – arose many years before the first email was sent.
Anyway, Stevie addressed the conspiracy theory at Cardiff saying: 'I must say to all of you, something that I was thinking, 'When did I want to let the world know this?' But I wanted to say it right now, you know there have been rumours about me seeing and all that,' he said, to much chuckling from the crowd. 'But seriously, you know the truth.'
'Truth is, shortly after my birth, I became blind,' he explained. 'Now, that was a blessing because it's allowed me to see the world in the vision of truth, of sight. See people in the spirit of them, not how they look. Not what colour they are, but what colour is their spirit?'
It's not the first time Wonder has talked about the conspiracy. In 2017, he joked with reporters from TMZ that he was going to 'reveal the truth about his sight' in that year.
The 75-year-old singer, for whom the phrase 'living legend' is, for once, apposite, wrapped up the UK leg of his Love, Light and Song tour in Hyde Park over the weekend. New material from the singer has been thin on the ground in recent years – it's now twenty years since he released a new album, 2005's A Time To Love, although he did put out a one-off single last year, Can We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart?
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