Stevie Wonder took a moment at a recent concert to address the persistent rumor that he is not actually blind.
“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,” Wonder, 75, began during a recent concert in Cardiff, Wales. “You know there have been rumors about me seeing and all that? But seriously, you know the truth.”
He went on to share the story of how he lost his vision, saying, “Truth is, shortly after my birth, I became blind. 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 color they are, but what color is their spirit?”
Wonder, who began performing as a child, has faced rumors about his blindness for decades, with celebrities and internet observers alike claiming that he can actually see. In 2016, comedian Anthony Anderson said he once challenged Wonder to a basketball game, joking to Stephen Colbert, “What y’all don’t know is, Stevie can see. It’s just an act.”
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Shaquille O’Neal, meanwhile, told a story in 2019 about Wonder allegedly recognizing him in an elevator. “I went and called every person I knew and told them the story, and they didn’t believe it,” the former NBA star, 53, recalled.
Wonder has also been known to make jokes about his sight himself, as he did last month while presenting Jamie Foxx with the Ultimate Icon Award at the 2025 BET Awards. During his speech, Wonder said he went “way back” with Foxx, 57, who called him after he won an Oscar for playing Ray Charles in the 2004 biopic Ray.
“He hit me up because of his win — Academy Award — for Ray,” Wonder quipped. “And I said, ‘You know, Jamie, just because you play a blind man that don’t mean that we’re besties, OK?’”
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Later in the speech, Wonder joked about Foxx’s “love — for blind people” before adding, “I’m very happy to be here tonight to see you honored as you so very well deserve.”
Wonder opened up about losing his vision last year in the Wonder of Stevie audiobook series, recalling that his mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, cried “every night” after he lost his sight.
Eventually, he told her, “Mama, you shouldn’t cry, you’re making my head hurt. And I said, ‘Maybe God has something for me that’s bigger than all this.’ History proved that true.”
