Music
This woman has seizures and vomits uncontrollably every time she listens to Ne-Yo
by Tyler Munro
November 12, 2014
The human brain is absolutely incredible, but when it breaks, it breaks. Take England’s Zoe Fennessy, an otherwise normal 26-year-old woman who suffers from musicogenic epilepsy.
In non-scientific terms, here’s what happens: Every time she hears a Ne-Yo song, Fennessy freezes up, vomits uncontrollably and has a seizure. Every. Time.
The seizures started triggering for her in 2011, when she heard Ne-Yo on Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything.”
‘People might think it is funny – and I can laugh at it myself – but it has taken over my life. It’s ruined my life.’
In June, doctors removed a bit of her brain to try and quell the seizures, but it didn’t take. She’s having less non-Ne-Yo related fits, but still loses it when the “Beautiful Monster” singer comes on. And as silly as this sounds to us, it’s been absolutely debilitating for Fennessy, who Gawker notes hasn’t been able to work for months and has to rely on earphones when in public.
“I have had to go up to DJs in places and say ‘look can you not play Ne-Yo’ and they just look at me like I’m an alien,” she told the Daily Mail.
[Doctors] are saying it could possibly be something in the tone of his voice, something like that, but it doesn’t happen when I hear Usher, or people like him who have a very similar sound. It is only him, only Ne-Yo.
She says a recent vacation to the Mediterranean was like being at a Ne-Yo concert because her song with David Guetta, “Play Hard,” was everywhere.
“I had to stay in the hotel room for most of the holiday because it got so bad,” she says.
Even with part of her left temporal lobe removed, Fennessy expects to live with the ailments forever.
Odd as this case might be, it’s not the only one of its kind. In 2008, a New Jersey woman had brain surgery to stop epileptic seizures that occurred only when she listened to Sean Paul. According to NBC News, it was successful.
Ne-Yo is set to release his 6th album, Non-Fiction, in January of next year. For her sake, we hope it’s terrible.
