Singing sensation Gabrielle is famous for her vocal chops and signature look – but it turns out there’s a reason she covers her eye.
The pop star was catapulted to fame back in the early 1990s, thanks to hits like Dreams and Outta Reach. But it wasn’t just her tunes and incredible voice that helped cement her as a music icon.
Gabrielle also has a rather recognisable look, opting to cover her right eye with an eyepatch, sunglasses or her hair. But why does she do it?
Gabrielle on why she covers her eye
Gabrielle, who appears on James Marin Saturday Morning on Saturday (May 11), once opened up about her famous style. The British star shared how it wasn’t her that came up with her look – it was a stylist called Corinna Pike.
Gabrielle then revealed that she covered her eye with a patch due to a health condition. The singer was diagnosed with ptosis, a droopy upper eyelid, as a child. She then had to have surgery which left her with a shortened eyelid.
“There weren’t any other females who looked like me. As a woman, you don’t see women who are not supposedly perfect on our screens,” Gabrielle revealed on Smooth’s Famous Firsts podcast.
Absolute strangers – would come up to me, and say: ‘What’s wrong with your eye?’
“And so for me to be a singer and to have this lazy eyelid, and made me look like I was half-asleep half the time – the idea of covering it so that I could be more confident… I guess that it wouldn’t be a distraction for others.”
Gabrielle on ‘rude’ questions about her eye
Gabrielle then recalled how as a youngster strangers would come up to her and rudely ask what was wrong with her eye.
She continued: “I spent a lot of my early youth… If I was working, people – absolute strangers – would come up to me, and say: ‘What’s wrong with your eye?’. It was the norm for them. But it’s quite rude! But I got so used to it.
“So to be in a position of being a singer and having to do all these interviews, and trying to be this confident 23-year-old, as I was at the time – and I wasn’t as confident as I wanted to be.”
Gabrielle says eyepatch was a ‘game-changer’
Gabrielle then revealed how because of the patch, “for the first time” in her life she could “make eye contact with someone without looking away” for fear of them noticing her eyelid.
She added: “The moment I wore that eyepatch, it was a game-changer and a life changer for me.”
Watch Gabrielle on James Martin Saturday Morning on Saturday (May 11) at 9:30am on ITV.
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