They say seeing is believing, and Lionel Richie believes Stevie Wonder can see.
Richie sat down with Kelly Clarkson on the “The Kelly Clarkson” show and discussed his longtime friend, Wonder, saying he convinced that the blind musician isn’t visually impaired.
“I’m going to tell you something. I’ve been spending my whole life with him thinking he can see. I know he can see,” the American Idol judge, 70, said on ’The Kelly Clarkson Show’ on Wednesday, December 11. “Listen [to] the story I tell that’s the funniest. I went to his house. He says, ‘Wanna hear a new song? I’ve got it in the car. C’mon, go with me.’”
Richie said the 69-year-old walked out to his car with him and said, “You sit on the passenger side, I’ll sit on the driver’s side.” That’s when something shocking happened. “He cranks the car up, he puts the tape in, right? And then he does this [turns around] and starts driving back down the driveway,” the “All Night Long” singer recounted. “And I screamed, ‘Stevie! What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘Ah, got you, didn’t I?’”
The two have shared a long friendship since 1985, where they and other artists recorded “We Are The World” at the Apollo Theater in New York. “I would hate to get around him because every time I would get around him, I would not want to give a phrase to him because he’ll write a song with it,” Richie said.
“He’s a great songwriter, a great musician and most of all a great human being,” Wonder told Access Hollywood in 2016 at MusiCares’ Person of the Year ceremony. “The truth of the matter is that we are honoring a man who was part of the duo who wrote a song that changed the world [‘We Are the World’]. We all came together in the spirit of love and doing something to make a difference. It literally woke the world up, through the idea and concept of giving back to our fellow man.”
