When Fantasia Barrino won American Idol in 2004, it seemed as though things were finally
looking up for the 19-year-old single mother from North Carolina.
However, her life continued to be marred by misfortune.
Here's a look at the tragic life of Fantasia Barrino — before, during, and after Idol.
Fantasia Barrino first experienced tragedy at an early age, the star painfully described
in her 2005 memoir Life is Not a Fairy Tale.
Barrino revealed that she was assaulted by a popular boy in their high school auditorium.
She wrote of the assault, which took place when she was in ninth grade.
"I can barely recall the details, [...] I just know that I shudder to think of how that
single act changed me in a way that I didn't need to be changed."
Eventually, Barrino told her mother about what happened, who helped her report the crime
to her school.
The perpetrator was punished, though not enough in Barrino's opinion, and she still faced
a negative situation at school.
Barrino explained in a 2007 interview with O, The Oprah Magazine, that after reporting
the boy, it became more difficult for her to attend school.
"We turned the guy in, but going back to school was hell; his homeboys would say, 'I'm going
to do to you exactly what he did,' [...] They thought it was funny.
That's when I quit school."
Barrino revealed in her memoir her lifelong struggles with reading and being able to function
while being illiterate, writing -
"I 'get by' in life, but my readin' isn't what it should be.
I am workin' on it.
I am still not confident enough with words or letters."
Barrino's reading challenges made her experience on Idol more difficult, since portions of
the show required her to read from a script.
In a 2007 interview the singer said that she successfully faked her way through the scripted
portions of the show, recalling -
"Somebody would say, 'You know, it's pronounced this way' and I'd be like, 'Oh, I'm sorry,
you know, I'm country.'"
Barrino's famous Idol rendition of the George Gershwin standard "Summertime," which Idol
judge Simon Cowell once dubbed his favorite moment of the show, was a challenge for the
star.
As she wasn't familiar with the song, she was given a page of lyrics to learn.
Fearful of the show's vocal coaches discovering her reading difficulties, Barrino instead
listened to the song until she memorized the words, which resulted in her successful performance.
Three years after dropping out of high school and moving into her own apartment, 17-year-old
Fantasia gave birth to daughter Zion.
Barrino told O in 2007 about her struggles during that period of her life, saying -
"When I moved out, started hanging out with the wrong people, and got pregnant, people
were like, 'She ain't goin' nowhere now,' [...] I'd lost myself."
Barrino's struggles were made worse by the violence she said she experienced at the hands
of her then-boyfriend and Zion's father, who was later arrested and charged for the abuse
he inflicted on Barrino.
Court documents claimed that the boyfriend's behavior included both choking and punching
her, and as Barrino recalled -
"I looked in the mirror and I said to myself, 'Look at me.
I can't see out of one eye.
I have knots on my head.
My lips are swollen, [...] And my little brother came to me one day and I remember he says,
'Oh, you look bad.'"
If you or someone you know is struggling with domestic abuse, please call or chat online
with the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
Dubbed "The Three Divas," Fantasia Barrino and her fellow Season 3 American Idol contestants
LaToya London and Jennifer Hudson were widely seen as frontrunners, with any one of them
capable of winning the show.
America was stunned, however, when all three women ended up in the show's elimination round
in an April 2004 episode.
Hudson, whose career exploded in the decades after Idol, was famously eliminated from the
show, while London and Barrino survived to compete in the next round.
Speaking about the episode in a press conference that same week, Elton John, who served as
a mentor for a previous Idol episode, blasted Idol viewers for allegedly engaging in racially
biased voting, considering that Barrino, London, and Hudson were all black women, saying -
"They have great voices, [...] The fact that they're constantly in the bottom three — and
I don't want to set myself up here — but I find it incredibly racist."
Following the publication of her memoir in 2005, Barrino's father Joseph filed a $10
million libel lawsuit against the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster.
Joseph Barrino disputed several of the book's allegations, including asking his daughter
for money and that he valued his children's musical careers over their education.
His suit also alleged that the singer didn't write her memoir and that the book was ghost-written
by her grandmother.
Barrino shared some difficult claims about her father in her memoir, writing about his
need for perfection from the music to his own appearance.
"I run this family, I run this band!
If I say we gonna rehearse when we get home, we gonna rehearse!"
In another passage, Barrino described her father hitting her as a child when she appeared
to sulk in front of other people, writing -
"I poked my lips out and acted mad in front of other people.
My father popped me, [...] I was so upset because I never did anything wrong.
I was so ashamed of getting a beating in public.
It never happened again."
Barrino encountered legal woes in 2010 when a North Carolina woman, Paula Cook, claimed
in a child custody case filing that Barrino had an affair with her husband, Antwaun [AN-twon],
leading to their divorce.
Barrino was called to testify during the couple's divorce proceedings later that year in a North
Carolina courtroom and allegedly claimed that she became pregnant with Cook's child and
underwent an abortion.
Barrino, who allegedly got Cook's name tattooed on her collarbone, further testified that
she had been involved with him for a year and a half and believed he was separated from
his wife during that time.
Cook's divorce petition, however, reportedly claimed that Barrino had been confrontational
with her in a phone call, allegedly saying -
"[Your husband] don't want you.
Maybe the next time that you get a husband you'll know how to keep him.
That's why he is here with me."
Barrino's manager, Brian Dickens, issued a statement at the time, denying that the singer
broke up the marriage.
In 2011, Barrino welcomed a second child, a son, Dallas Xavier.
While Barrino never disclosed the details of her child's father, she has reportedly
been involved with Antwaun since 2010.
Shortly after Fantasia was accused in court documents of breaking up the marriage of her
alleged beau's marriage, Barrino's manager, Brian Dickens, found the star nearly unconscious
in her Charlotte, North Carolina mansion in August 2010.
According to his statement, the singer was hospitalized for being dehydrated and exhausted
after taking too many pills, but that her injuries were not life threatening.
Barrino later told VH1's Behind the Music in 2010 about her decision to take the potentially-fatal
dose of medication, revealing -
"I just sat in the closet and looked at the mirror and took all the pills in the bottle,
[...] I wanted to go to sleep and just be at peace.
I knew exactly what I was doing.
You can't accidentally take a whole bottle of pills."
Barrino attributed her depressed state to people's opinions of her and dealing with
her family.
Fortunately, though, Barrino recovered and went on to win her first Grammy in February
2011 for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her song "Bittersweet."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call or chat online with
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Fantasia Barrino struggled for years to keep one of her homes in Charlotte, North Carolina,
almost losing it in 2008 when she was accused of nonpayment of a loan.
Barrino's house, which she later saved, was set for auction to pay back over $68,000 of
Barrino's taxes in 2006.
Barrino disputed the rumor, saying,
"I've always been a hard worker and I've always busted my tail to make sure me and my family
have a roof over our heads."
Barrino also dismissed the buzz that American Idol judge Simon Cowell helped bail her out
of debt, though she admitted she at least thought that part was cute.
Barrino eventually listed the house in 2012, and after failing to secure a buyer, gave
up the house by transferring the deed to a bank, allegedly in order to avoid foreclosure
on the property.
Fantasia landed in the headlines over some social media drama in 2013, after the star
shared a since-deleted Instagram post that many interpreted as homophobic.
Mentioning current events, the star wrote,
"It's a lot that going on that the Bible speaks about we should not be doing."
Barrino added some thoughts on gay marriage and highlighted the legalization of marijuana
as another sacrilegious event.
While religion is an important part of Fantasia's life -
"I always go to church, and I always give God praise.
Because if it had not been for the Lord on my side, I wouldn't be sitting right here
right now."
Her comments still rubbed people the wrong way.
The American Idol winner later walked back her comments in statements from herself and
her representatives.
After her reps claimed that Barrino's words were taken out of context, Barrino issued
her own message, writing in part -
"It has been brought to my attention that something I said was taken out of context.
I, Fantasia Monique Barrino, don't judge anyone because I don't want to be judged.
The gay community is one of my largest supporters.
I support the gay community as they support me."
In a seperate post she claimed several members of her team were homosexual as well.
Several months later, perhaps as a show of goodwill to the LGBTQ community, Barrino signed
on to perform at the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival.
In 2017, Fantasia Barrino's brother, Xavier, was injured in a motorcycle accident.
The singer revealed some two years later that, at that point, he still was not walking.
Barrino also spoke about the transformative impact the accident had on her brother, saying
-
"[His generation], it seems that they're a lot different from how we were raised...They're
kind of lost and they want microwaveable careers; everything really quickly."
Barrino described the tough-love approach she was taking with her brother's recovery,
with his Instagram posts from 2019 showing him standing with the help of braces, commenting
-
"I'm not going to give you anything...You've got to put the work in just like I did.
When you put the work in, you cherish it more, you take care of it."
Barrino's brother's Instagram posts show his determination to recover from the injury,
and his recent updates detail his progression to being able to walk again.
Keep it up Xavier!
Fantasia Barrino experienced more personal tragedy in 2018, when her 18-year-old nephew
Tyquan Washington died in a North Carolina shooting.
His obituary praised Washington's talent for gymnastics and other passions like football
and singing and dancing.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, Barrino mourned the death of her nephew, writing,
"Auntie is so sorry baby...RIP to my oldest nephew."
The singer also sent prayers to her brother and Washington's father.
After the shooting, a suspect was charged with the first-degree murder of Barrino's
nephew as well as robbery with a dangerous weapon.
After enduring her fair share of relationship dramas, Fantasia Barrino married Kendall Taylor
in 2015 after a quick courtship of just three weeks.
"And he falls to his knees, he reaches over and gets his oil, he takes my hands, and he
prays for me."
Hey, when you know, you know right?
In addition to the expedient engagement, Barrino raised some eyebrows with a 2019 interview,
in which she suggested that women should submit to men and let their male partners play the
dominant role in their relationships, saying -
"You've got to let the man be the head of the house...You have to learn how to submit.
You can still be a queen, a queen plays a part, a king needs his queen...but a queen
has to sit back and allow her king to be the king."
Naturally, those comments didn't sit well with everyone.
Barrino and Taylor attempted to clarify their stance on gender roles in a September 2019
Instagram video.
In the clip, Taylor said,
"Submission is supposed to be a beautiful song and dance between two lovers.
What's happened is men have abused that power.
Forgive me, they've abused that gift."
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