Brandy Talks About How Her Daughter Helped Her Through A Low Point In Life

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Congrats to Brandy! The singer is riding high off the success of her latest release ‘B7’ and is featured on the cover of the August 31st edition of PEOPLE magazine. In the interview she talks about going deep on her new project, overcoming depression and how her daughter Sy’rai has been the light of her life.

In particular the article focuses on the singer’s emotional wellness, a topic Brandy says hit very close to home but that she hesitated about revealing, particularly on her new project’s single “Borderline” and the song “Bye Bipolar.” While Brandy says she hasn’t actually been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she still worried if she was getting too personal with her music.

“I was thinking, ‘Did I go too deep? Did I go too far in what I was singing about?’ But I didn’t dwell on those thoughts,” she says. Staying on top of her mental health with therapy, meditation, journaling and her faith, Brandy says she’s finally feeling back on track.

“I’m in a place now,” says the singer, “where I can be proud of moving in the right direction.”

While her life is currently in a great place, Brandy admits life got particular hard after a series of tough times, which included the revelation that she and Sy’rai’s father, producer Robert Smith, were never married — despite them portraying their relationship that way on film. There was also her highly scrutinized and publicized involvement in the fatal 2006 car accident that claimed the life of a 38-year-old woman — an incident Brandy still declines to speak on out of respect for the woman’s family, who settled out of court with her. There were also heartbreaks from failed relationships. For a woman who had experienced so much success at such an early age, it began to feel like too much to bear and she contemplated taking her own life.

“I remember laying in bed super depressed,” she says. “I [told] myself, ‘So, you’re just going to go out like this? That’s wack. You have a daughter. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for her because this is not the way to leave a mark in her life.'”

She credits her daughter Sy’rai, who is 18 now, for keeping her alive.

“If Sy’rai wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be either,” she says. “The place that I was in, it just felt like I wasn’t going to make it through.”

Thank God for Sy’rai! We’re glad Brandy was able to pull through and that she’s in a better place now. Congratulations to Sy’rai for her contribution on B7 on the song “High Heels” as well as recently graduating from high school this year.