Andy D. asks: What was up with David Bowie’s eye? Did he wear contacts or something to make it like that or have some sort of medical condition?
David Bowie was a man who reinvented himself countless times throughout his roughly half-century long career; one thing that remained constant about Bowie’s appearance, though, were his eyes.
For anyone who doesn’t have Bowie’s likeness burned into their consciousness, the musician famously had one brown eye and one blue eye. Or at least, it looked like he did in pictures.You see, in actuality both of Bowie’s eyes were the exact same colour- light blue, something the singer himself was quick to point out in interviews. So why did it often look like they were two different colours?
Bowie suffered from a condition called anisocoria, which basically means that his pupils were unequally dilated. An estimated 20% of people have some form of anisocoria. But in most cases, it’s largely harmless. However, in Bowie’s case, the dilation was extremely pronounced and resulted in limited vision in his left eye.
Anisocoria can be caused by everything from a condition known as Horner’s syndrome to a particularly bad migraine, though most people will simply be born with it. In fact, statistically a lot of you reading this will suffer from a minor form of anisocoria that is barely noticeable without close examination. Finally, it’s also possible to have anisocoria as a result of injury or trauma, which is what happened to Bowie.
In 1962, when Bowie was just 15 years old, he got into a minor fistfight with a friend called George Underwood who was a one-time band-mate of Bowie eventually turned artist.
The fight was over a girl that both boys had a crush on. When Bowie, who didn’t know Underwood also had a crush on her, was bragging to Underwood about “what a Casanova I was” with the girl, Underwood, in his own words “was so aggrieved I walked over to him, basically, turned him around and went ‘whack’ without even thinking.”Unbeknownst to Underwood, this act damaged the muscle in Bowie’s left eye…
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