Gwen Stefani recently opened up about how music helped her cope with dyslexia and how her three sons are learning to do well in school, despite those issues.
Gwen Stefani appeared for an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music for the latest edition of his At Home With conversation series, where the “Hollaback Girl” singer said she discovered she had dyslexia when her three sons struggled with reading.
One thing that I’ve discovered through having kids is that I have dyslexia — everyone has things that happen and mine was that. And I feel like a lot of the problems that I have had or even decisions that I’ve made for myself stem from that because now the children it’s all genetic — they have some of those issues, the 51-year-old pop singer explained.
“But now they get all these benefits. They have these incredible teachers and schools and they don’t have to have shame about it. They understand that their brain functions in a different way. All of our brains do, you know what I mean?” she added.
Referencing her own experience, Stefani said she “failed at school,” adding “I was a good girl. I didn’t do any bad stuff. It was just really hard for me to function in that square box of school that everybody was supposed to be understanding. And my brain didn’t work like that; it still doesn’t. But it works in different ways that are probably a gift that other people can’t do.”
She even opened up about how anxiety affected her life. “At that time I had written that whole record not even knowing how to write a song and I had literally laid my entire life out for everyone to hear. And then I’m still in the band with Tony [Kanal] who I was so dependent on, because of probably my dyslexia,” the No Doubt alum said.
“I didn’t know any of this until now, but I think that I didn’t have any confidence in myself, at the time, but when I would write a song or I would get on stage, it just felt so right and the only thing that was going right for me,” she explained.
Stefani is currently focusing on her creative passions, including music. and she credits her happiness to fiance Blake Shelton, who proposed to her in Oct. “Life’s gotten so good right now actually having a best friend who I can be in love with and just share everything with and trust. It’s just been such a different chapter,” she said.