The Grammy winner opens up about fame, heartbreak, and loss in her recently released memoir, “Phases.”

Biggest revelations from Brandy’s memoir: Underage romance with Boyz II Men’s Wanya Morris, Kanye West feud, and more

The Grammy winner opens up about fame, heartbreak, and loss in her recently released memoir, "Phases."

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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March 31, 2026 12:48 p.m. ET

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Brandy Norwood in 2024. Credit:

Prince Williams/WireImage

Brandy is telling her story, in her own words. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and actress opens up for the first time about the trials and tribulations of her rise from child star to national treasure in her recently released memoir, *Phases*.

With the help of journalist Gerrick Kennedy, Brandy details her formative years in Mississippi and later California, sharing who she was before becoming the songstress known as the Vocal Bible and the first Black Cinderella. Her vividly told and occasionally heart-wrenching memoir tells the story of a young girl with big dreams who rose to fame in the early '90s, trading in church choirs for sold-out tours and TV soundstages, all the while juggling ambition, exhaustion, and self-doubt in the public eye.

Brandy Norwood as Moesha Mitchell on 'Moesha'.

Brandy reveals the secrets behind the release of her self-titled debut album to becoming the lead in the sitcom *Moesha* and sparking a turning point for a generation of Black girls, and how an addiction to diet pills and one failed romance after another made her into the woman she is today.

Here are the biggest revelations from Brandy's new memoir, released Tuesday.

Brandy confirms her relationship with Boyz II Men singer Wanya Morris started when she was 16

Although Wanya Morris has long denied rumors that he and Brandy began a relationship when the singer was a teen star, Brandy is using her memoir to tell her truth. Brandy writes that her relationship with the Boyz II Men member started when she was 16 and he was 22, a year after they met and Morris became her "mentor."

In *Phases*, she says that Morris began to call and check in on her regularly, offering advice as an "anchor" and "confidant" to the up-and-coming star. After she joined Boy II Men on tour, however, the pair got closer. "What had begun as admiration had transformed into something else," Brandy writes. "It seems to me that he weaponized my admiration, shaped my friendship into dependence, my respect into desire. I felt swept up in a current I couldn’t control."

She reveals that their relationship took a turning point after they filmed the music video for their collaboration, "Brokenhearted."

"'My girlfriend is sixteen.' I don't remember when he first said it. But those four words started rolling off his tongue whenever we were alone," she recalls. "I couldn't tell if this refrain was meant to soothe his own conscience or temper the questions shimmering in my gaze. Perhaps it was his way of tethering himself to a boundary, even as he quietly edged past it. Or maybe it was simply a reminder to himself, a whisper to keep the illicit nature of our connection in view. Regardless, I was under the impression that we were madly in love — or at least what I believed love to be at sixteen. A grown man's version of love, designed to serve his needs."

Brandy Norwood performs at Life Cafe, New York, March 19, 1997.

Steve Eichner/Getty

Brandy details a first time with Morris that "lacked the specialness I had painted in my mind, because it wasn't about me at all." She describes the sexual element of their relationship as Morris "getting what he wanted from someone too young to recognize she was being used," adding that she believed she was "too naive to realize that deep down inside he did not see me as special. I think he saw me as conquerable. As someone whose boundaries could be negotiated away. I was in over my head."

"He and I understood, with diamond- cut clarity that public knowledge of our relationship would ignite scandal, potentially threatening everything we'd both worked for," she writes. "So he and I opted for elaborate fiction: we would pretend patience and claim we were waiting until my eighteenth birthday before pursuing any romantic connection."

Their relationship ended when Morris confessed to multiple infidelities. "I was sixteen years old, dealing with the infidelity of a grown man who I believe had pursued me, took my innocence, and was now revealing he'd not been faithful. I may have been young, but I was wise enough to know I had been played. And that wasn't love."

Brandy reveals abusive relationship with ex-dancer

In the spring of 1999, Brandy reveals she began a relationship with one of her dancers — referred to in *Phases* as "The Dreamer" — which turned abusive once her first world tour as a headliner ended.

"The Dreamer was so talented it made my heart ache to watch him. He had all these ambitious visions for his future, but his head floated in the clouds." Brandy writes. "He was so far disconnected from the realities of an industry I knew all too well. What he wanted, what he craved with an intensity that sometimes alarmed me, was fame. He couldn't understand why his star hadn't risen the way he'd hoped. 'You have this light,' he told me once. 'It's like you were born with it. Some people chase it their whole lives and never catch it.' I could see the hunger in his eyes. The fire. I connected to that drive. That passion."

Things turned sour when the tour ended and Brandy returned to work on *Moesha *in Los Angeles. "When the tour ended and we returned to Los Angeles, to routine and reality, things changed," she recalls. "The playfulness that had drawn me to him began to curdle at the edges. His teasing took on a sharper edge. His charm would vanish without warning, leaving behind something cold and brittle that made me tread carefully, choosing my words with the precision of a bomb technician."

"The verbal jabs became sharper," Brandy claims, recalling how The Dreamer would cut down her appearance, accuse her of cheating on him with other men, and take his jealously of her fame and success out on her. "I became an expert at deflecting compliments toward him, at redirecting spotlights so they wouldn't leave him in shadow. I dimmed my own glow, thinking it would help him shine brighter."

It took her mother sneaking a book on verbal abuse to her for Brandy to realize what her situation really was, and spur the singer to end her relationship with the dancer for good.

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Brandy reveals why she walked off stage at concert without singing 'The Boy Is Mine' with Monica

See Brandy and Jennifer Love Hewitt finally reunite in 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' (exclusive)

Brandy recalls her family and label thought “The Boy Is Mine” duet with Monica was a mistake

The 1998 Grammy-winning duet "The Boy Is Mine" came at a time when speculation of a feud swirled around Brandy and fellow R&B icon-in-the-making Monica. While the song was originally written for Brandy to sing solo, the singer had the brilliant idea to add another singer to spice up the single, and reveals that no one else was onboard with her choice of featured singer.

"'You're fanning the flames,' my mother warned. 'People will blow this out of proportion,' my brother said. 'It's a mistake,' one Atlantic executive said flatly during a meeting, not even bothering to hear me out," writes Brandy, who reached out to Monica anyway. She describes the pair, on a rare day off, riding rollercoasters together — a favorite pastime of hers — and says that the initial recording session for "The Boy Is Mine" went smoothly.

Monica and Brandy at the 1999 Grammy Awards.

Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect via Getty

And while the song became an undeniable hit — withstanding years-long rumors and the test of time to this day — the naysayers weren't wrong. Where there hadn't been any beef between the singers before recording the song, a chasm formed between them as industry politics rubbed them the wrong way. Monica re-recorded her vocals with her own producer, Dallas Austin, while her label boss, Clive Davis, renamed Monica's album *The Boy Is Mine* as a way of trying to claim ownership of the duet.

Brandy explains that performing the song solo on *The Tonight Show with Jay Leno *didn't help matters in the media or with her fellow singer. She says Monica had a scheduling conflict, but the promotional opportunity couldn't be passed up. "I convinced myself I couldn't afford to pass on national television exposure, so I performed our duet alone, singing both parts," she writes. "My intention wasn't to slight Monica, but the optics were problematic at best."

The pair patched up their relationship in time to accept a Grammy for the record. They reconnected in 2010, attending Davis' pre-Grammy gala together to see their mentor Whitney Houston perform. They reunited in 2012 to record their follow-up single "It All Belongs to Me," a female empowerment anthem.

Three years later, Monica went on record explaining there was never really a feud between her and Brandy, saying it was all "brilliant marketing" behind the track's drama that kept fans asking about it for years.

"People are still asking: 'Who was the boy?' and 'Who got the boy?' There was no boy! It just was a song!" Monica told HuffPost Live. "We played up the dramatics of it all, but I'm like, 'Guys, we were 16 and 17.' We're 35 and 36 now. There was no boy and no beef."

Brandy shares intimate details of her final call with Whitney Houston before her death

Brandy doesn't shy away from admitting her fawning adulation for the late Whitney Houston, who would later become a close mentor and onscreen collaborator. From the way she describes it, Brandy spent most of her childhood and adolescence working to meet the icon; from the time she once schemed her way backstage at one of Houston's concerts —although she didn't get to meet her that night — and revealing that she even managed to get the singer on the phone pre-fame, when she was 12 years old.

When she ultimately met Houston, she literally ran out of the room in shock and awe!

Years later, the duo were close — close enough that Brandy was the first call Houston made to play the Cinderella to her Fairy Godmother in 1997's *Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella**. *Close enough that Brandy perfectly recalls reuniting with the singer the day before her tragic death on Feb. 11, 2012.

Brandy recounts preparing to perform at Clive Davis' pre-Grammy gala with Monica, where she reunited with a "disheveled" Houston.

"Whitney came bouncing — no, exploding — onto that stage like a chaotic meteor, trailing laughter, water, and the unmistakable scent of trouble," she writes. "Her clothes clung to her damply, evidence of an impulsive swim, and she moved with the unpredictable rhythm of someone no longer tethered to the room. Whitney appeared to be under the influence, and it was tough to be in a room crawling with strangers whispering and judging her."

Brandy remembers speaking with Houston on the phone later that night, hours before *The Bodyguard *star would be found dead from drowning in a bathtub and the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use."

Whitney Houston and Brandy Norwood at 'Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella' premiere on Oct. 13, 1997.

Brenda Chase/Getty

"For three precious hours, we talked. We reminisced. We laughed together. Cried together. Prayed together," Brandy writes. "There were flashes of the old Whitney in that conversation — glimpses of light breaking through. 'I'm gonna be better,' she promised as our call wound down, and in that moment, I believed her with every fiber of my being. 'You'll see. This is just a season, not the whole story.'"

Brandy almost converted to the Church of Scientology

After suffering a "mental breakdown" due to an addiction to diet pills and overwhelming responsibilities, Brandy says she began "searching for God and enlightenment everywhere and anywhere I could."

The search led her to the Church of Scientology. She writes that she became intrigued by the religion founded by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard when a friend was "undergoing something called the Purification Rundown."

"The idea fascinated me — cleansing body and spirit simultaneously, sweating out impurities that had accumulated over years of silent suffering, of prioritizing 'the dream' over my own well- being," she continues. "I felt toxic, poisoned by expectation and performance and the corrosive acid of self- hatred. Purification sounded like salvation. That was my introduction to Scientology."

She shares that she began reading "Dianetics and Scientology books, sprawling tomes as heavy as my doubts. They spoke of immortal spirits who had forgotten their true nature — and wasn't that exactly how I felt? Like I'd forgotten who I truly was beneath the layers of performance? Scientology promised knowing how to know, and I was desperate for certainty, hungry for anything that might bring me closer to understanding."

"For a while, I believed this was the path —the structure I needed, the answers I craved. But something kept me from full surrender, some quiet voice of caution that whispered beneath the promises of clarity and freedom. Ultimately, it was not the path for me, either," she concludes.

Brandy describes clash with Kanye West over Aphrodisiac album

Brandy collaborated with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, for her fourth studio album, *Afrodisiac*, an experience that she describes as more than difficult. She writes that the decision was completely out of her hands, "a decree wrapped in the thin disguise of collaborative decision- making," with the powers that be at Atlantic Records.

"The dust had barely settled when I discovered the truth: the label was hoping to court Kanye to come to Atlantic," she reveals. "Without consulting me, they had offered Kanye two placements on my album, with the added condition that one of his records would be the lead single. They would also give him free rein to create the video treatment for that single."

While the production of their first single, "Talk About Our Love," went off without a hitch, things took a turn when it came to the single "Where You Wanna Be," of which two versions were cut.

"The album was otherwise complete, and I was still hot over having to compromise my creative vision by bringing in another producer at the eleventh hour. But I made the concession and played the team game. The records came out dope — no denying that. But our disagreement over which version of 'Where You Wanna Be' would make the final cut became a power struggle," Brandy writes. "And I didn't understand why Kanye was fighting me on it. I just wanted a different mix of the vocals. We went back and forth for days, and I refused to make another concession. Especially not about how my voice was presented."

Brandy goes on to write that she approached Ye during a recording session to ask him if they could reach a compromise on which version of the single to release. "He barely looked up from the soundboard. 'Nah, I can't do that.' His eyes met mine, unflinching, a challenge in their depths. 'I can't because I turned it in already,'" Brandy writes, adding that she went on to press Ye on what he meant by those words.

"He shrugged, turning back to his work as though this conversation was already over. 'You'll be aight,' he said with a smug grin that set my teeth on edge," she writes. "That may sound like a minor disagreement to someone on the outside looking in. But to me, it represented a stripping away of my agency, on a deeply personal project. But I couldn't afford to be upset or angry. I still had a video to shoot and a record to promote with Kanye. I'd also promised [Atlantic executive Gee Roberson] that I would return the favor and do a record on Kanye's sophomore album, *Late Registration*. So, I swallowed my pride along with the lump in my throat, forced a smile that didn't reach my eyes, and nodded like this was all part of the process."

The singer notes that although she remains proud of the songs she crafted with Ye, she cannot shake the belief that "my vision had been dismantled by label politics and industry games."

Brandy explains “spiritual” marriage to Robert “Big Bert” Smith

Brandy made headlines in 2002, when she announced that she was expecting her first child with producer beau Robert "Big Bert" Smith. The pair had kept their relationship a secret since it began during the production of her album *Full Moon* in 2001, and the news of her pregnancy was particularly surprising considering her public persona of being fairly innocent and religious.

"When word of my pregnancy spread, every congratulatory call inevitably curved toward the same question: 'So when's the big day?' Robert and I shared a love as profound as any vow could capture. But neither of us felt ready for marriage," Brandy writes. "We had pledged ourselves to one another — emotionally, physically, spiritually. We made promises to one another that meant more to us than any certificate. That was enough for us."

But the singer admits that the pressure from the public was mounting, which she understood considering that the "good girl narrative that had been stitched into my public persona demanded a specific sequence: marriage first, then motherhood."

"Having a baby out of wedlock threatened to tarnish the all- American image that had been meticulously crafted around me, despite the fact that I was now a twenty- three- year- old woman making my own choices," she laments.

Brandy Norwood sits courtside with Robert Smith during the 2002 NBA Playoffs on May 14, 2002.

Catherine Steenkeste/NBAE via Getty

Brandy reveals that she suggested to Smith that they "just tell people we're married if they ask." She admits she didn't expect the lie to spiral after the birth of their daughter, Sy'Rai.

But she recalls that the end of their relationship led to a "betrayal" that ripped her career apart. "When the romantic love between us began to fade, I truly believed we could transition back into friendship without scars. I was naive," Brandy writes. "Interviews became interrogations — not about the songs I'd poured my soul into, but about why I'd kept my relationship so close to my chest. The speculation metastasized after Robert and I separated. The questions grew more pointed, more personal."

After Brandy confessed in an interview that she hadn't been ready for commitment, she recounts catching Smith revealing the truth behind their sham marriage in an interview with Wendy Williams on her daytime talk show*.*

"'There was never a marriage.' He proceeded to tell Wendy — and by extension, the entire world —that we had fabricated our marriage to protect my pristine image," Brandy recounts. "That I had been the 'other woman.' That he had reconnected with his girlfriend, who was now carrying his child. And most devastating of all, that the entire charade had been orchestrated by my mother."

The singer writes that those words "cut deep," reasoning that the former couple had made "a commitment to protect one another no matter what." Brandy states that her decision to lie about marrying Smith "sprouted from terror, pure and simple."

"I'd known nothing but the suffocating pressure to maintain the spotless image of America's teenage sweetheart," she writes. "Even as I crossed the threshold into my twenties, I carried the weight of that crown. I was paralyzed by the potential judgment I might face having a child outside of marriage. But by lying, I had only made things worse."

She claims that CoverGirl, "whose fresh- faced campaigns had featured my smile for years," unceremoniously severed ties with her — one of several brand endorsements she lost in the fallout.

"I lost everything I thought defined me," Brandy writes. "Yet in the aftermath, I found freedom. In the sting of disapproval, a strange new power emerged. No longer the perfect polished role model, I could finally exist in the world exactly as I was — perfectly human."

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Memoirs”