Heavy Fantasia Barrino says "American Idol" producers advised her not to talk much about being a teen mom to daughter Zion
When powerhouse singer Fantasia Barrino was advancing week after week on “American Idol” in 2004, she says producers advised her not to talk about the hardships she’d faced in life, especially being a teenage mom.
In an interview with USA Today published on January 11, 2024, Barrino — who currently stars in the hit musical “The Color Purple,” now in movie theaters — recalled how she rose to fame and won season 3 of “American Idol” despite ignoring the input she kept receiving behind the scenes.
Here’s what you need to know:
Producers Told Fantasia Barrino She Was ‘Losing Voters’ Whenever She Talked About Her Daughter on ‘American Idol’
“American Idol” winner Fantasia Barrino with daughter Zion’s birthday in August 2004 at Disney World
When Barrino became a contestant on “Idol” at age 19, she was already a mom to Zion, her almost three-year-old daughter with Brandel Shouse, per People. Show producers warned her not to talk about her daughter, she told USA Today, because they saw her “losing votes” whenever she discussed her life story.
“They would come to me and say, ‘Hey, maybe don’t speak so much about your daughter,’ because I was young,” she recalled. “I wasn’t quite giving off the ‘Idol’ vibe.”
Growing up in High Point, North Carolina, Barrino was raped at age 14, according to Oprah Magazine, and quit school. By the time she got pregnant at 17, she told Oprah Winfrey, “everybody seemed to give up on me.”
“I was the girl who could sing and was supposed to grow up and do something with my life,” she said. “But 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.”
Still believing she could make it as a singer, Barrino drove to Atlanta to audition for “American Idol” with $50 from her grandmother in her pocket, she told Winfrey. She wound up being the last person allowed to audition at the Georgia Dome and eventually won the entire competition.
“I had a hard time in the beginning of the show,” she recalled. “Some of the voters didn’t like the fact that I had dropped out of school and had a baby out of wedlock. How could I be a role model for their kids?”
“Also, I had no money for clothes to wear onstage,” she recalled. “I felt like I didn’t belong in this fancy competition with all these people who could go shopping when they wanted. I knew that if they didn’t make it, they would have something else to do with their lives. This was all I had.”
Hiding that she had a daughter didn’t sit right with Barrino, who told USA Today she shares a special bond with Zion after those early, challenging years.
“We were in the trenches together; it was just me and her,” she said. “I was a child, and I didn’t know what I was doing. But I knew that I was going to take care of her and show her something different.”
She held back tears while telling the paper that she believed in herself even then, and just wanted others to believe in her, too.
“I wanted people to see me,” she said. “Yes, I had a child at a young age. Yes, I dropped out of school. I’m here with my gift and my future looks bright – maybe you can’t see it, but I can.”
Fantasia Barrino Has Always Chosen to Share Honestly About Her Life, She Says
The turning point for Barrino on “American Idol” came midseason, she told Winfrey, when she decided to sing Gershwin’s “Summertime” while sitting on the stage barefoot, exposing the raw emotion in her voice and convincing viewers she was worthy of the “Idol” crown, even if she didn’t have a fancy wardrobe or a perfect past.
The judges were blown away, too. Randy Jackson called it “the single best ‘Idol’ performance of any season I’ve ever heard,” Paula Abdul deemed it an “Oscar-winning performance” and notoriously critical Simon Cowell called it “magical.”
Today, at age 39, Barrino is a proud mom of three to Zion, now 22, 12-year-old son Dallas, whose dad is Antwaun Cook, and two-year-old daughter Keziah, whom she shares with husband Kendall Taylor, per People.
Though her path since “Idol” hasn’t always been smooth, Barrino is savoring the success of “The Color Purple” and the healing she’s done in her personal life.
During a recent interview on SiriusXM’s “The Jess Cagle Show,” Barrino said that that through it all, sharing her authentic self has always served her well. Even while filming “The Color Purple,” for which she’s received rave reviews and a Golden Globe nomination, she opted to do her own stunts so she could bring her own experiences with physical abuse to the role of Celie.
“For me, I’ve always been the type to talk about the things that I go through,” she said. “When I was asked to do ‘The Color Purple,’ I had just started traumatic therapy. If you don’t know what that is, that is when they take you back to your childhood to help you heal from things that could be hindering you and your future.”
“I had to stop therapy to allow Celie to be my therapist,” she continued. “Those were moments that I needed.”
Just like when she wowed viewers with “Summertime” back in 2004, she also brought the emotion behind her life story to deliver a powerful performance of “I’m Here” in the movie, an anthem about redemption and resilience.
“There’s a lot of people that don’t feel seen, heard, beautiful,” she told Cagle. “And there’s finally a moment, a point in your life, where you realize, ‘You know, I’m pretty dope. I can do this. I feel that I can get back up.’ So that song is like church to me.”