SEAL’S TRAGIC CHILDHOOD ‘It was f illed with violence and abuse!’
He prides himself on being a loving and committed dad to his four children, but Seal’s “fractured” upbringing was anything but harmonious.
The Voice coach, 54, was fostered as a baby, before being reunited with his birth mother four years later. He then went on to live with his biological father – who, he alleges, was physically abusive towards him until he left home at the age of 15.
“It was filled with violence and abuse and a complete and utter lack of love,” Seal says of his upbringing. “I became a kid who lived in his head because I had to create an alternative reality.
“My foster family laid the groundwork for how I turned out. I was plucked out of that safe environment when I was five but because I was loved for the formative years of my life, I knew that when my father flogged the living daylights out of me, he was acting outside of himself.
“I don’t blame him, though,” the singer adds. “He’s shown me what not to become.”
‘I lived in my head because I had to create an alternative reality’