Fans are shocked to learn that Dawn Robinson of the legendary 1990s singing group En Vogue has been homeless for three years.
Robinson, 58, gathered up the gumption to admit to her fans on her YouTube page that she has been mostly living and sleeping in her car for the vast duration of that period.
Dawn Robinson admits the embarrassing truth
“I said it, oh my gosh, it’s out!” she gasped as she marveled at her courage to unfurl this embarrassing truth in her YouTube vlog on Tuesday, March 11.
The woman who helped belt out the timeless classics “Hold On,” “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It),” “Whatta Man” (with Salt-N-Pepa), “Free Your Mind,” and “Don’t Let Go (Love),” cannot even afford to live in a hotel.
Dawn Robinson was forced to move back with her parents
Robinson did not get into detail as to how she went from traveling the world as a member of En Vogue and then as part of the Lucy Pearl singing trio led by another legend, Raphael Saadiq of Tony! Toni! Tone! fame, to having to move back in with her parents. But the experience soon became so traumatic and dramatic that she had to live on the streets and her car.
“If you guys were with me, what in 2020, I did like 105K interviews and in the interim I was living with my parents in [Las] Vegas and that was wonderful until it wasn’t,” Robinson continued on the vlog. “I love my mom but she became very angry and [she was taking] a lot of her anger out on me.”
The Oakland, Calif., native continued, saying, “I was her target all the time and I was like, ‘I can’t deal with this.’ Like, I respect her too much. I didn’t understand it; I still don’t. It hurt me.”
Dawn Robinson became a part of the ‘car culture’
The singer said she thought she was getting a respite from the homeless experience when her co-manager offered to put her up temporarily. But that didn’t end well either.
“He said you can stay with me,” she recalled. “He said he would make room for me. Well, when I got there, it turned out there was no room. So he put me up in a hotel. And that day turned into eight months.”
By 2022, Dawn read up on the “car life” culture and decided to give it a shot: “I felt free. I felt like I was on a camping trip. It just felt like it was the right thing to do.”
However, Robinson noted of her revelation: “It’s not ‘woe is me.’ I’m learning about who I am, I’m learning myself as a person, as a woman.”
This is not the first time that Robinson talked about her struggles associated with the music industry. She said that she left both En Vogue and Lucy Pearl because she was getting paid pennies, despite the worldwide fame, and couldn’t pay her bills.
