Behind the scenes of Brandy Norwood’s fairytale career, the pressure to remain thin, her toxic relationships, and a tragic accident would change her life forever.
Some of the highlights of her career include starring in her own TV show, having her own Barbie doll, and winning a Grammy award. But she also went through some dark times on her journey to the top. Here’s the sad truth about Brandy Norwood’s life story.
Acting got in the way
Brandy Norwood was born in McComb, Mississippi to Sonja and Willie Norwood. At the age of seven, she told her dad she wanted to be the next Whitney Houston. Little did she know, just a few years later, she would be working alongside her idol.
After she, her mom, dad, and little brother Ray J left Mississippi, the family settled down in Carson, Calif. This putBrandy within close proximity to the entertainment industry. And with so much talent, she didn’t have any trouble finding work and was hired as a background singer for the R&B group Immature.
In 1993, she signed with Atlantic Records and her mom was hired as her manager. Sonja told ABC she was taking a lot of heat from people who said she was going to ruin Brandy’s career. And things between Sonja and Brandy were complicated as well. Brandy admitted to ABC that she wanted her mom to be more nurturing, but Sonja was all about business all the time. Brandy said, “Sometimes I just wanted her to listen to my problems.”
While Brandy was working on her debut album, she landed a role on the ABC sitcom entitled Thea. According to the New York Times, Brandy wasn’t enthusiastic about acting at the time, she desperately wanted to sing and was always miserable when she had to cancel studio sessions to fulfill her acting duties. The show was canceled after one season, and she was able to put all of her focus back into making music.
Controversial first love
In 1994, her self-titled debut album was released. It was certified quadruple platinum in the U.S. and sold six million copies worldwide. The following year, her song “Sittin Up In My Room” appeared on the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, she accompanied Kobe to his high school prom, and she was asked to go on tour with Boyz II Men.
In an interview with Vibe magazine, she described Kobe as “cute,” but she had her sights set on someone else. During her Behind the Music episode, Brandy said while on tour, she fell in love with Boyz II Men’s lead singer, Wanya Morris.
She was just 15 at the time, and because he was six years older than her, she was afraid to share her feelings. One day, she finally found the courage to speak up. She said, “I just told him that I loved him and thanked him for making me feel the way I feel because I had never felt that way before.”
They became a couple and Brandy said, “I was on a high. It was love. It was real love.” They kept their romance a secret, but at some point, she told her mom. Unsurprisingly, Sonja wasn’t pleased with the age difference. In an interview with Vibe, Sonja said one of their biggest issues is Brandy’s belief that she stood in the way and never allowed her relationship with Wanya to “blossom.”
A love triangle and a breakup
In 1996, Brandy was bitten by the acting bug once again. She recorded a pilot for a show entitled Moesha. CBS passed on the show, and the series was quickly picked up by UPN. Starring alongside veteran actors William Allen Young and Sheryl Lee Ralph, Brandy held her own. Not only was her character involved in almost every scene of the show, but she took on a producing role, as well.
In 1997, after a two-year relationship with Wanya, things fell apart. During her Behind the Music episode, Brandy said Wanya fell in love with someone else. R&B singer Adina Howard, also Brandy’s label mate, revealed during an episode of Unsung that she was the missing piece of the Brandy and Wanya love triangle.
Adina admitted the love triangle was the start of her career doing a downward spiral. You can find out more about what happened to her career right here.
Reeling from her breakup, Brandy still had to film episodes of Moesha. According to ABC, the pressure to look perfect caused Brandy to stop eating. Her weight plunged to 105 pounds. She said, “It was destroying me. But I looked great and that’s what mattered.”
In 1997, she was handpicked by Whitney Houston to play Cinderella in a made-for-TV movie. Though her career was soaring, she was still trying to get over Wanya. She decided to channel her feelings into her 1998 album, Never Say Never. The duet entitled “The Boy Is Mine” featuring R&B singer Monica would escalate into an on-again-off-again feud between the two singers. Despite the drama, the chart-topping song earned them a Grammy award.
A toxic romance
Brandy attempted to give love another shot by dating the rapper Mase but she told Vibe he wasn’t focused enough. She added, “He couldn’t take me serious, and I couldn’t take him serious.”
She met a guy who wasn’t in the industry and they began dating. According to Vibe, his jealousy destroyed everything. Brandy said, “I felt like he hated me for being me.” During one incident at her apartment, he stood in front of her and called her the B word 13 times. The mistreatment escalated to him putting his hands on her. Brandy told ABC, “I blamed myself for everything. I thought that no one else would want me.”
Brandy’s professional life was still moving forward at full speed. She landed a role in I Know What You Did Last Summer, and starred alongside Diana Ross in Double Platinum.
Did diet pills lead to a breakdown?
Her bad relationship, non-stop schedule, and extreme dieting came to a head in 1999 during a taping of Moesha. After announcing on set that she needed to take a break, she jumped in her car and drove home. She told ABC she started to feel giddy and nauseous before she began hallucinating. She added, “I think I kind of snapped.” Brandy was hospitalized for three days, and doctors diagnosed her with exhaustion and dehydration. Well, that’s the story Brandy told ABC…
The National Enquirer blamed diet pills for Brandy’s breakdown. According to the gossip magazine, her issues started a year prior when she began gaining weight. A source told the Enquirer, “It was so apparent that some people joked she might be pregnant.” The source alleged that in response, Brandy started taking three or four different pills and returned to the set of Moesha looking “thin as a rail.”
The insider said things boiled over on the day of her meltdown. The source said, “Brandy returned to the studio and fell to the floor screaming, ‘I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.’”
Love & ‘marriage’
Moesha ended in 2001, and Brandy told ABC she dumped her boyfriend, became a vegetarian, and fired her mom as her manager in an effort to mend their relationship. With her mom reassigned to a new role as the CEO of Brandy’s company, it allowed the singer to hire veteran music exec Benny Medina as her new manager.
She began working on her third album with some help from producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. While recording, she became romantically involved with Rodney’s cousin, Robert Smith. Vibe magazine reported Brandy and Robert quickly got married soon after meeting, but it was all a lie. We’ll get into that in a bit…
Their relationship coincided with Robert branching out as a solo producer. At the same time, Brandy decided to cut ties with Rodney after he began giving out her unique sound to other artists. This caused some tension between them and Rodney. Brandy told Vibe, “I think Rodney felt like he lost his best friend and his artist all at the same time.”
Nothing was going to stop Brandy and Robert’s love from flourishing though. She told the magazine, “I felt like to him nothing else mattered but me. And I loved that feeling, because I hadn’t felt like that with anybody.”
In 2002, her album Full Moon was released. That same year, Brandy and Robert went public with their relationship and Brandy revealed they were expecting a baby. A year after the birth of their daughter, they separated. Brandy blamed their demise on a lack of passion.
Brandy the jump-off?!
One year after their split, Brandy Norwood’s life story got interesting when she began dating basketball player Quentin Richardson. At the same time, she was promoting her fourth album, while her ex Robert was running his mouth to the media. In an interview with Wendy Williams’ radio show in July 2004 (via E! News), he admitted he and Brandy were never legally married. Next, he gave an interview to Power 99 radio station and referred to Brandy as his jump-off.
Robert said he was dating a film producer when he found out Brandy was pregnant with his baby. Brandy’s mom came up with the plan to tell everyone they were married in an effort to protect Brandy’s wholesome image. Robert told the radio host he reunited with the film producer following his and Brandy’s breakup, and the film producer was pregnant with his baby.
Almost two weeks after Robert blew the lid off of their fake marriage, Brandy announced Quentin Richardson had proposed to her with an 11-and-a-half-carat diamond engagement ring (via MTV). Unfortunately, just 15 months after their engagement, the wedding was off. The National Enquirer reports they kept in touch following their breakup and attempted to reconcile a few times.
In 2004, Brandy fired her manager and left Atlantic Records. She signed a new deal with Epic Records, and in January 2005, the L.A. Times revealed her Moesha co-star Lamont Bentley, who played the character Hakeem Campbell, lost his life in a car accident at the age of 31.
A tragic accident
She appeared in a few more acting projects, but in December 2006, her life changed. Brandy was driving on the freeway when her Land Rover rear-ended a Toyota Corolla that was occupied by a 38-year-old woman and her two children. The woman’s car was then forced into another car in front of hers, then swerved into the freeway’s center divider and was broad-sided by a fourth automobile. The woman passed away from her injuries the next day.
The incident caused the singer to be taunted online and in public. The National Enquirer (via Celebitchy) claimed Quentin dumped Brandy for good on the morning of the car accident. A heartbroken and distraught Brandy was allegedly seen leaving his hotel in tears before getting on the freeway.
On an episode of a Centric docuseries, Brandy said she didn’t think she deserved to be alive. Prosecutors were also looking to lock her up for a year for the role she played in the woman’s passing. On top of that, the other drivers and the family of the woman who passed away were seeking judgments from Brandy and her insurance company.
TMZ reported charges against Brandy were dropped when toxicology reports showed the woman who passed away had “slight traces” of marijuana in her system. Brandy eventually paid $600,000 dollars to the woman’s children and settled out of court with the other parties.
Life took a turn for her again in June 2007 when she fell unconscious before her Delta flight took off from LAX. Brandy was rushed to a hospital, and her rep told the Associated Press the singer was suffering from exhaustion due to a hectic work schedule.
More losses
Brandy Norwood’s life story took another turn when she briefly reconciled with producer Rodney Jerkins for her 2008 album Human. Her album Two Eleven was released four years later through Chameleon Records. That same year, tragedy struck again when actress Yvette Wilson, who played the character Andell on Moesha, passed away at the age of 48 from cervical cancer.
In 2012, she dealt with the loss of Whitney Houston’s passing. To make things even worse, the R&B legend passed away on Brandy’s birthday.
Brandy told Oprah Winfrey, “Whitney and I were very close. I couldn’t accept the fact that she was no longer here.” Sometime in 2012, she began dating music executive Ryan Press. She told Us Weekly Ryan had restored her faith in men. In December 2012, they got engaged, but less than two years later, the wedding was off. A source told Us Weekly, “They decided to take a step back and reevaluate the relationship.”
By 2015, she had pulled herself out of another state of depression. Things were beginning to look up for her when she began dating rapper Sir the Baptist. Things ended four months later after she reportedly found out he was cheating on her with his baby mama and two other women. Chile…
What’s next for Brandy?
In December 2019, she announced she would love to star in a reboot of Moesha. She also has plans to star in a musical that’s inspired by her life.
Despite all the ups and downs, Brandy remains strong, poised, and resilient as one of the best-selling female artists of all time
Let us know if you’re shocked by Brandy Norwood’s life story or drop us a comment on our YouTube channel!