Stevie Wonder Thanks Everyone for 'Prayers and Love' After Having Kidney Transplant
When your life is lived in the limelight, sometimes you don’t get to tell your own secrets. There are entire industries based on spreading rumors or spilling personal information before the people involved are ready to share them.
That’s probably why Stevie Wonder decided to beat those rumor-mongers to the punch last July during a performance at the British Summer Time Festival in London.
The legendary musician was very straightforward and just said it like it was.
“So what’s going to happen is this: I am going to have surgery. I am going to have a kidney transplant in September of this year,” Wonder said.
The crowd gasped, but then they began to cheer.
The moment, this evening at Hyde Park, Stevie Wonder told us why he would be taking a break from performing…. pic.twitter.com/pwfjnczGKx
— Aleem Maqbool (@AleemMaqbool) July 6, 2019
“I’m all good, I’m all good, I’m all good,” he said through the clapping. “I have a donor and it’s all good.”
“I want you to know, I came here to give you my love and thank you for your love. You ain’t got to hear no rumors about nothin. I told you what’s up, I am good.”
Now, Wonder is reassuring everyone that things have gone well and he feels great — better than great, even: He says he feels young again.
“Let everybody know that I was blessed with a new kidney and that happened on Dec. 6, 2019,” he said during a news conference Tuesday, according to People.
“Since I have been released from the hospital, I’ve had nurses that have made sure I have my medicine on time and I’m going to take it for as long as I have to — even if it’s for the rest of my life.”
“I feel great,” he continued. “My voice feels great.”
“I told my daughter, ‘Aisha, I’m going to be like five years younger than you now.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna go from being 70 to like 40.’ I feel like I’m about 40 right now, and I just thank everyone for their prayers and love. I’m feeling great.”
Despite letting his fans know about his surgery ahead of time, the 70-year-old still felt the need to dispel some of the things that had been said about him.
“For all of the people that have been listening to these rumors — listen, if I’m feeling some kind of way, I’ll let you know,” Wonder said.
“We don’t want to have misinformation. I am alive and well and looking forward to having a car that drives, so I can drive myself.”
He even drew from one of his own pieces and said, “When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”
If there’s one thing Stevie Wonder’s fans can count on besides his musical genius, it’s on his being real with them — a rare and precious quality these days.
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