'It Was Devastating': Huey Lewis Admits He Was in a 'Real Depression' After Losing His Hearing
Famous 80s musician Huey Lewis recently opened up about the loss of his hearing over the years.
The Huey Lewis and the News frontman explained how his diagnosis with an inner ear disorder called Ménière's disease has affected his ability to listen to music.
"It's cacophony for me. It just sounds like noise," he said of what he hears when listening to tracks.
"It occurs in all frequencies with harmonics and other things, and what happens with my particular hearing loss, is not only is it hearing loss, but it ends distortion to the bottom end," the 73-year-old explained of his condition, which began in his late 30s.
Lewis then recalled his experience when he started losing his ability to hear in his right ear at the peak of his band's success.
"I was really freaked out," Lewis spilled, while adding his ENT doctor tried to comfort him by listing other famous acts that have dealt with hearing loss.
"He said, 'Jimi Hendrix had one ear, Brian Wilson had one ear, I have one ear and I'm in a barbershop quartet,'" the "This is It" singer remembered. "When he said, 'You only need one,' he was actually right. You can do pretty much anything with one ear."
However, Lewis had also lost hearing in his left ear by 2017.
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"It was devastating at first," he divulged. "I pretty much laid in bed for six months. I worried, I panicked."
"I was in a real depression," Lewis confessed. "I lost 20 pounds. I pretty much stayed in bed, but I have two great kids and they wouldn't stand for it basically, and I slowly improved."
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The father-of-two now wears hearing aids and has been able to change his mind set about his illness over the years.
"There's a lot of people out there much worse off than I am and it's very important for me to realize that. My life is not as great as it used to be but it's still better than most," he stated.