Brandy was once America’s sweetheart, presenting a picture-perfect image of a successful black teen in the ’90s R&B scene. But after years of both career and personal setbacks, Brandy has finally opened up about her most traumatic experiences, including her eating disorder, heartbreaks and that infamous fatal car crash.
The “It All Belongs to Me” singer opened up about her pain in the latest episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music,” as she chronicled her celebrity rise and fall.
While talking about her perfect image, Brandy explained that the pressure to be flawless drove her to strive for the perfect body and eventually an eating disorder.
“I wanted to be thin. That was my main thing. So I started not taking care of myself — not eating properly, not eating at all, diet pills, regurgitating, all all of these things that girls do,” she revealed.
Depsite having multiplatinum albums, the hit TV show “Moesha” and a burgeoning film career, Brandy says that inside she just felt she was a failure.
“People don’t understand that being the hottest star or making the most money does not mean anything,” she said. “I’m here to tell you I was making so much money — I was omnipresent — and I was the unhappiest teenager probably in the world.”
The singer also opened up about everything from her heartbraking secret relationship with Boyz II Men star Wanya Morris and her fake marriage to music producer Robert Smith, the father of her daughter, Syrai.
But it was Brandy’s confessions about her infamous 2006 car crash that killed 38-year-old Awatef Aboudihaj that the singer opened up in a way that fans have never seen before.
“It was a blur and it was one of those experiences that you just wish would never happen to anybody, but it did and it was one of the worst times in my life,” said Brandy. “And now everyone’s saying that I’m to blame.”
Brandy tearfullyexplained that the backlash following the accident has been almost as painful as the tragedy itself.
“I would hear what people would say, and still to this day they knew that’s a button,” she explained. “They know that they can call me a murderer or call me someone that killed someone … A murderer is someone who premeditates it. I didn’t wake up that day to be involved in a fatal car crash. I didn’t plan for that. And if I could take it back, I would.”
We commend Brandy for letting the world really see the story behind the music and see the woman who’s grown from her “perfect” teen pop image.
You can watch the full episode below and check out some more teen pop stars who’ve endured tragedies below. –nicholas robinson
