Lionel Richie has admitted that his sculpted likeness in the music video for ‘Hello’ left him feeling “worried to death”.
The singer famously portrayed an art tutor in love with a blind student in the promotional film back in 1984, but was concerned that the sculpture looked so little like him.
Director Bob Giraldi insisted that this was in fact the intention in a bid to ease his nerves.
Lionel explained to Billboard magazine: “When I saw the bust, I said, ‘Bob, it doesn’t look like me.’ He said, ‘We’ll talk about it later.’
“We filmed one segment. I went back and said, ‘You really have to take a look at this.’ We filmed the second segment, and here comes the third, where I had to shoot with the bust. Again, I said, ‘Bob, it doesn’t look like me.’ Bob turned to me and said, ‘Lionel, she’s blind. End of subject.’
“In other words, if she got a perfect look, what kind of exceptional person is this? It’s got to look a little skewed and off.
“But it worried me to death to stand next to this bust. I’m going, ‘Oh, my God, I hope the world doesn’t see me looking like this.’ “
He also revealed how there wasn’t plans for a blind woman to be featured originally.
“It was going to be a story about someone seeing someone else across the room and falling in love. Then Bob Giraldi came along and took the seeing part out.”
