For all the changes David Bowie cultivated in his storied career, there was one aspect of his persona he had no control over: his two coloured eyes.
Bowie had seemingly different coloured eyes. Bowie’s right eye was blue, while his left appeared dark or brown.
This unusual appearance was the result of anisocoria, a condition caused by Bowie’s left pupil being permanently dilated.
You might think that Bowie had the condition called Heterochromia, where humans have two different coloured irises, but that wasn’t the case.
It wasn’t that his left eye was of a different colour (both eyes were blue), it appeared different because the fixed pupil did not respond to changes in light, while the normal pupil did.
So was Bowie born this way, or did something happen to the songwriter?
Something happened, and call it case of “Let’s Dance”: In 1962, Bowie, then 15, got into a schoolyard scrap with his mate George Underwood over a girl they both liked.
It was in that lovers’ battle that the future rock star got hit on the left side of his face. He reportedly suffered a deep corneal abrasion and paralysis of his iris sphincter muscle, leaving him with two seemingly different coloured eyes. (It’s unclear if either got to date the girl.)
See a close up of the odd appearance of David Bowie’s pupils in the photos below:
Bowie remained friends with Underwood, who was also a musician, with the two performing together before Underwood left the music biz.
Meanwhile, Bowie went on to become one of the world’s most innovative and popular music stars, crafting classics such as “Space Oddity”, “Changes”, “Life on Mars”, “Ziggy Stardust”, “Ashes to Ashes”, “Modern Love” and many more.
He also forged a movie career appearing in films such as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Prestige.
According to the Bowie biography Starman, by Paul Trynka, Bowie was thankful for his injury, telling Underwood that it gave him “mystique.”
Bowie died in 2016 aged 69 after an 18-month battle with cancer.
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