He's a four-time Grammy winner with a one-of-a-kind voice, and a father of two sons with his supermodel wife Heidi Klum. Gayle talks with Seal about his music career, his family and his recent reunion with his childhood foster family on The Oprah Winfrey Show .
Seal was born in 1963 to Nigerian parents, but until the age of 4 he was raised in a foster home in a London suburb. He later returned to live with his biological mother and then his biological father, but says his life with his foster family was the most harmonious time in his life. "I did get to know my biological parents, [but] I never felt like I really knew my mother…that is the reality of it," he says. "And my father and I, we had a really strange, distant relationship." When he was recently reunited with his foster family on The Oprah Show , Seal says he was thrilled. "I am so happy to have them in my life now," he says.
Seal says his album System is named in part because of the difficult experiences he's overcome, such as being separated from his foster family. "It's kind of my way of saying 'Look, if you don't like the current situation you are in—if you don't like the system—you don't have to be a victim of it,'" he says. It was that same attitude that Seal says landed him a recording contract, even though his soulful voice was at first difficult to market. "I couldn't get signed initially to a record company because no one really knew where to put me, but I just stuck to my guns," he says.
Today, Seal says he loves the life he's created with Heidi and their children. In fact, the reason why System is his first studio album since 2003 is because Seal says he's been having so much fun spending time with his family. "We just have the best time together," he says. "Heidi makes [life] so much fun and she keeps it romantic and that rubs off on me."
