The American singer-songwriter Ryan Adams doesn’t necessarily strike you as the aggressive type, that is until you try and take a picture of him using a camera with a flash.
The drama unfolded at a recent concert in Philadelphia, a female fan repeatedly took flash photos of the musician during the song ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’, which lead to Adams stopping and berating the woman.
Now in fairness he wasn’t just acting like an out of control diva, the singer suffers from Ménière’s Disease, a disorder of the inner ear that causes spontaneous episodes of vertigo.
It’s a medical condition that has plagued the artist for years and at one point was the reason he suffered from debilitating stage fright.
He explained: “If somebody flashes lights in front of my eyes, LED or otherwise, while I’m onstage and starts a pattern of lights in front of me for long enough, I’m going to have a Ménière’s attack, I’m going to have an episode. My knees are going to get weak and I’m going to get really freaked out until I’m going to want to throw up or pass out.”
Adams told the lady: “Hi, my name is Ryan and I have Ménière’s Disease. If you flash me with your camera, it feels like you took a lightsaber and you sliced my brain in half.”
About 2:45 into the video below, Adams understandably goes off on the woman, asking her to please stop. A few minutes after the incident, he told the lady: “I owe you an apology and I’m sorry that I acted the way that I did.”
