Stevie Wonder Is Not Blind

About

“Stevie Wonder is not Blind” is a tongue-in-cheek online conspiracy theory claiming that the American musician Stevie Wonder faked being blind his entire career.

Origin

On November 14th, 2005, Gov Teen Forums^[6] member mikeduff919 submitted a thread titled “Is Stevie Wonder 100% Blind?”, in which forum member Kard replied that he had seen an interview in which musician Boy George claimed he had been strangled by Wonder at a party.

Spread

In 2007, a post stating that Stevie Wonder was faking blindness was submitted to Yahoo Answers.^[1] In 2008, a Yahoo Answers^[2] post was submitted which claimed Wonder was not blind and drove a bus. On July 23rd, 2011, YouTuber rafael cma uploaded a video titled “Is Stevie Wonder really blind?”, showing footage of Wonder appearing to lean into a falling microphone while performing on stage with musician Paul McCartney (shown below). In the first four years, the video gained over 100,000 views and 40 comments.

On February 29th, 2012, YouTuber Jay Bav uploaded videos of ESPN television host Bomani Jones discussing the arguments behind the conspiracy theory (shown below).

On April 3rd, 2014, the Bold Symmetry Wordpress^[3] blog published an post titled “Is Stevie Wonder Really Blind?”, which highlighted several online sources claiming that Wonder was pretending to be blind. On August 6th, TMZ^[5] published footage of retired professional basketball player Darryl Dawkins claiming Stevie Wonder could see. On October 2nd, Gawker^[4] published an article titled “Stevie Wonder if not Blind: The Truther’s Case”, which outlined claims made by conspiracy theorists. On October 6th, The Daily Dot^[7] published an article about the online Stevie Wonder “truthers.”