Donna Lewis: 5 Things To Know About 90’s One Hit Wonder In Diddy’s Super Bowl Ad
Donna Lewis is best known for her 1996 single, ‘I Love You Always Forever’. Learn about the singer-songwriter here.
- Donna Lewis gained mainstream fame in 1996 after releasing ‘I Love You Always Forever’
- Donna has continued to make music, but has not focused on just pop music
- Donna has been married for nearly 30 years and has one son
Sean “Diddy” Combs recruited some ’90s icons to create a jingle for Uber One in his new commercial for Super Bowl LVII, which can be seen above. The video shows artists with viral hits over the years performing a new, Uber-inspired version of their respective songs. One of the artists who took a turn singing is Welsh pop singer Donna Lewis, who is best known for her 1996 single “I Love You Always Forever”. She changed the lyrics from “I love you always forever / Near or far, closer together,” to “Uber One saves you forever / Rides and eats / Save on whatever”. Her original song hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August of 1996 and would serve as Donna’s only top 10 hit of her career.
Donna is thrilled to be included in the commercial, which also starred Montell Jordan (“This Is How We Do It”), Kelis (“Milkshake”), Ylvis (“The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)”), and Haddaway (“What Is Love”). Alongside a snippet of her part she shared on Instagram, she gushed, “Been waiting almost ‘Always Forever’ for this. Catch it Sunday!” Now that she is back in the spotlight for the wildly popular song she created nearly 30 years ago, read on to learn more about Donna Lewis.
‘I Love You Always Forever’ Gave Donna Lewis Financial Freedom
Donna Lewis received a classical music education from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, according to her official biography, so pop music is just one genre of music she’s versed in. She has covered a variety of musical genres throughout her career, and she said it’s all thanks to her 1996 smash hit, “I Love You Always Forever,” in a 2011 chat with BBC. “The airplay for that song has been good to me over the years,” she noted. “At that time, in 1996, I never paid much attention to the financial side; I was too busy doing what I love. But it definitely gave me the opportunity to do whatever musical projects I wanted to do.”
Donna Lewis Released A Jazz Album In 2015
Speaking of working within varying genres, Donna released a jazz cover album, Brand New Day, in 2015. It was recorded by the jazz trio The Bad Plus. “This record is a completely different path for me,” she told PEOPLE at the time. “I didn’t want to be one of those pop singers coming back from a hit many years ago with a standards record. We sat down really thinking about the musicians and what kind of songs we wanted to do.”
The album included a new version of “I Love You Always Forever,” which she admitted wasn’t the original plan. “I was definitely thinking I wouldn’t do that. We had a couple of other things that didn’t make the record, and it was an afterthought. And it was [composer David Torn] who pushed to do a completely different arrangement of it. But I’ve grown to really like it,” she recalled.
She also admitted the album wasn’t on her radar until David and Jeff Resnick, her two “good friends”, brought the idea to her. “When they approached me about it, I thought it was great. A complete departure from anything I’d done before. I was worried that I might be seen as just a ‘pop singer doing jazz’ so we thought really carefully about the songs and the musicians,” she told Sussex Jazz Magazine in June 2016. “We wanted people that we knew could be really creative with the idea of taking a pop song or a mainstream song and doing something incredible with it.”
Donna Lewis Refused To Reveal Her Age During the Peak Of Her Career
Donna refused to reveal her real age amid her success in 1996, and it’s still unknown. She simply used the fact that she had been married to her husband and manager, Martin Harris, for nine years to show that she was “not 21”, according to her 1996 chat with Entertainment Weekly. She gave more insight about her age in a 2015 interview with All About Jazz. “When I was in the pop world (I’m kind of out of it now), I wasn’t a 19-year-old — I was 30 or something like that. But I was so thankful to get a record deal and have my music out there,” she said.
Donna Lewis Has One Son
Donna has one son with Martin: Archie Lewis-Harris, who is a 19-year-old music student at New York University, according to his Instagram bio. In July 2022, he starred in a Star Wars fan film called THE STIMULANT – A Star Wars Fan Film, which can be seen here. He also composed the music for it.
Donna Lewis Is A Miley Cyrus Fan
Donna is a huge fan of Miley Cyrus‘ No. 1 hit, “Flowers”. In Jan. 2023, she shared a video on Instagram of herself blissfully dancing in the woods as snow fell to the self-empowerment song. “Because……. I love this Miley song,” she captioned the video, which can be seen above.