Stevie Wonder Caught In Love Child Scandal
Oct. 21 2016, Published 9:52 a.m. ET
Father of nine Stevie Wonder has cruelly turned his back on a secret love child — whose mother is dying of lung cancer, RadarOnline.com can reveal in a bombshell world exclusive.
Cancer-stricken Gloria Jean Mathis Greenidge claims her daughter, Stephanie Mathis, is named after her world-famous dad, and she desperately wants them to meet "before it's too late."
A heartbroken Mathis, 49, added: "I just want to spend time with my dad."
Greenidge said she met a teenaged Wonder when he was performing at the old Uptown Theater in Philadelphia back in the late 1960s.
He was a child prodigy on his way to superstardom, and she was an unmarried backup dancer and mother of three daughters.
A musical director brought Wonder to her dressing room one night, and they had sex, she said.
"We fell madly in love with each other. Every time Stevie would come to Philly, he would come get me," recalled Greenidge.
"I got pregnant, and I let him know. He was very excited about the baby. He was only 17, and I was 19," she said. "He didn't want me to have an abortion, and I wouldn't have done it anyway. So we decided to have our baby."
"I didn't want anyone to know that he had a baby, and he wasn't ready for that to be known," continued Greenidge. "I loved him so much that I didn't want to scar his name or make anybody have bad feelings about him. So I said I would take care of our baby until one day he would find me."
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Although they agreed to keep her pregnancy secret, Greenidge claimed she and Wonder discussed what to name their child.
"We agreed that if the child was a boy, we'd name him Steve. If it were a girl, she'd be named Stephanie, and I honored that wish," said Greenidge, who now lives in a senior housing complex in Philadelphia.
According to Greenidge, the last time she saw Wonder she was eight months pregnant, and the Motown legend talked to his namesake daughter only once — during a heartachingly brief phone call in the 1970s.
"He said he'd try and visit," recalled Mathis, who was just 6 years old at the time.
But the visit never happened, leaving her devastated.
"It was so hard for me. I cried every day and every night," Mathis said.
But now, decades later, the man she knows as her father and the world knows as a multiple Grammy Award winner may finally become part of her life.
The 66-year-old musician — who has nine children aged 1 to 40 by five different women — has apparently agreed to explore Greenidge's claim that he fathered Mathis.
"Before I decide the course of action, I will investigate the situation further and make the right decision based on what I learn," Wonder said in a statement provided by his lawyer.
"As a man who is committed to family, my intention is to do the honorable thing, and I will determine what my actions will be once the whole picture is clearer."
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