Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesBy MEGAN STONE, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Gwen Stefani recently learned something new about herself: She has dyslexia.
The “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” singer sat down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Monday to talk about her sons’ learning challenges.
“One thing that I’ve discovered through having kids is that I have dyslexia,” the 51-year-old singer announced. “I feel like a lot of the problems that I have had or even decisions that I’ve made for myself stem from that.”
Stefani recalled her past struggles when she was younger, admitting she “failed at school.”
“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,” she continued. “My brain didn’t work like that; it still doesn’t. But it works in different ways.”
Now that she understands why her children — Kingston, 14, Zuma, 12, and Apollo, 6 — struggle with reading, she’s giving them every advantage to succeed.
“They get all these benefits,” she said. “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.”
Stefani admitted her struggle to keep up academically with her peers impacted her self-esteem.
“Probably my dyslexia. I didn’t know any of this until now, but I think that I didn’t have any confidence in myself,” the Grammy winner divulged, saying the only “thing that was going right for me” was when she wrote songs or performed on stage.
Stefani shares sons Kingston, Zuma and Apollo with ex-husband Gavin Rossdale.
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