Lil Jon has worn sunglasses for basically his whole career, and now he is finally saying why. In his new memoir, “I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me,” out Tuesday, October 20, he writes that a childhood accident at about age 6 left him with lasting damage in one eye.
Growing up in Atlanta, Jon, born Jonathan Smith, watched his mother Carrie, who was diabetic, give herself insulin shots. Curious, he picked up one of her syringes to feel the air on his eye and accidentally stabbed himself in the eyeball, according to the memoir excerpt published by People.
Doctors found a traumatic cataract from the needle. He went through multiple surgeries, including a corneal transplant, and he had to wear a metal eye patch to school.
“I definitely was teased in school.”
Lil Jon, to People
Jon says the teasing made him shy, and he turned it into fuel. Being picked on for looking different became the reason he wanted to prove people wrong, first behind the drums and then in the studio.
“I used that as fuel in my fire to excel.”
Lil Jon, to People
As an adult, the same childhood injury left him with a lazy eye. He had another surgery to help it, but the sunglasses stayed, and they became part of the look everybody knows him by.
So the shades were never just a style choice. They started with a scared kid in a metal eye patch, and he never took them off.
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