Entertainment

Stevie Wonder: How He Became a Ladies’ Man

Published

10 years ago

March 3, 2015

Stevie Wonder performs during the finale of “Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life – An All-Star Grammy Salute,” at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

by Stacy M. Brown
Special to the NNPA from The Washington Informer

Stevie Wonder practices what he preaches. One of our greatest love-song writers, composer of “My Cherie Amour” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” recently fathered his ninth child — with a fifth woman.

“No one has been a greater advocate for the power of love in this world than I have, both in my life and in my music,” Wonder once said.

Just prior to his “Songs in the Key of Life” concert that aired Feb. 16 on CBS, friends described his remarkable knack for finding pretty ladies. They say the 64-year-old Casanova met his fiancée, 40-year-old Tomeeka Robyn Bracy, with that same instinct.

“Like he does with all of the other women, they were at the same gathering and he smelled the kind of perfume she was wearing, she walked past him and he said she seemed light on her feet so she must be a pretty lady,” the source said.

Wonder himself has previously described how he meets women, saying that he was taken by his first wife, the late Syreeta Wright, because “she was fresh.”

He said he sensed her sexiness by touching the sleeves of her blouse.

“A lady that wears an expensive top, is not loud when she speaks and smells good, that’s how I know,” he said. “I know a lady of the world when I’m around her, so I really don’t need anyone to tell me she’s the one or she’s not.”

One former girlfriend, whom Wonder met in a Los Angeles church during Sunday worship, said that the singer’s entourage helps as well.

“I mean look, he’s sitting in the pew right behind me. He’s Stevie Wonder. Later, I found out that one of his guys that were with him told him, ‘Wow, she’s got a nice butt and a face to match,’ ” she said.

“But, I remember him tapping me on the shoulder, and his pick-up line was asking me what was it that brought me to church. I said, ‘I’m here every single Sunday because I believe in God’ and he says that he could give me all of the things God has promised to give me, only I didn’t need to pray to him.”

Another ex-girlfriend, who dated the singer for nearly five years, said Wonder wooed her by repeatedly showing up at church, even staying late, stealing her heart by giving piano lessons and turning gospel songs into love songs.

“He’d change the words and insert my name and his name in there and he’d even talk about what he thought would be good baby names and how he’d buy the most fabulous of houses and how he knew I could help him to take care of himself and do his heart right,” she said. “So, naturally, it wasn’t hard to fall for.”

Wonder has been married twice but fathered children — aged two months to 40 — with five women. His first child, Aisha, was born in 1975 and became the subject of hit song “Isn’t She Lovely.” Even Wonder’s mom, who died in 2006, acknowledged some of her son’s antics.

“He’d pick out a woman like Diana [Ross], or Martha Reeves and, before they’d come into the building, he’d get someone to tell him what color dress they were wearing,” Lula Hardaway said.

“When they’d come in, Steve would run up to them and say, ‘I love that red dress. I love those black shoes,’ and they’d be stopped in their tracks.”

But Wonder would soon learn that Ross — who was having an affair with Motown Records founder Berry Gordy — was off-limits.

“He flirted, but when it came to Diana, we had to let him know that she was the boss’ woman and the boss doesn’t play,” said Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops.

Stacy Brown is the co-author of “Blind Faith: The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder’s Mother.”