Tragic Details About Singer Brandy's Life

This article includes discussion of suicide. 

If you were a fan of R&B in the 1990s and early 2000s, you may be wondering whatever happened to Brandy Norwood, better known by her stage name, Brandy. After all, she was one of the most notable stars of that era. Brandy and fellow R&B icon Monica took home a Grammy Award for their legendary 1998 duet "The Boy Is Mine." Not only that, Brandy's 2002 studio album "Full Moon" reached the number one spot on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop chart in 2002, as well as the number two spot on the overall Billboard 2000 chart. Brandy also found success as an actor, playing the titular roles in both Disney's cult favorite live-action "Cinderella" movie from 1997 and the hit UPN sitcom "Moesha," the main cast of which unsurprisingly looks rather different today.

But while it's true that Brandy's mainstream popularity isn't quite what it once was, she's remained in the public eye. Though her 2020 comeback album "B7" wasn't able to top Billboard's R&B chart like her previous record "Two Eleven" did eight years prior, it still reached a respectable number nine. She's also kept relatively busy in the acting world, even making a cameo in the 2025 "I Know What You Did Last Summer" reboot, reprising her role as Karla Wilson from the 1998 sequel "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer." But for all her success, Brandy has also faced her fair share of sadness and hardship. From family drama to a life-changing car accident, and a highly-publicized concert walkout, these are some of the most tragic details about Brandy's life.

In 2001, Brandy Norwood began a relationship with Robert Smith (the music producer professionally known as "Big Bert," not the front-man for The Cure). The two got together while working on Brandy's aforementioned hit 2002 album "Full Moon." In addition to the release of the record, 2002 also saw the birth of Brandy and Big Bert's daughter, Sy'Rai Smith, who grew up to look like her mother's twin, as well as becoming an R&B singer in her own right. Around the time of Sy'Rai's birth, Brandy and Big Bert were publicly presenting themselves as a married couple. They ended up breaking things off around 2003; curiously, however, nothing ever came out about divorce proceedings. So what gives? Well, as it turns out, they were never actually married. As Big Bert revealed during a 2004 radio appearance, the couple just said they were, as they believed that having a child out of wedlock would sully Brandy's Disney princess-like image. 

Apparently, he felt no need to keep the charade going once their relationship ended. Understandably, Brandy was not the least bit happy that her ex went public with this information. "He is trying to destroy my reputation while using me and our daughter to get publicity and radio airplay for his artists," the singer proclaimed in a statement at the time (via Entertainment Weekly). "I am stunned that he is being so dirty about it." The singer previously opened up about the pressure her public persona put on her, confessing to Oprah.com in 2002, "I was too embarrassed to tell my mom about some of the things I was experiencing because of the good-girl image that had been created for me."

The world of music was a family affair for Brandy Norwood long before her daughter Sy'Rai Smith decided to follow in her footsteps. The "Moesha" star's father and voice coach is gospel singer Willie Norwood, while her brother is none other than fellow R&B singer Ray J. By all accounts, Brandy and Ray J have long shared a close bond, with Ray J even getting a tattoo of his sister in 2022 as a permanent representation of that. But in 2025, he confessed that there had been some distance between himself and Brandy in recent times.

"I love my sister, but I'm an embarrassment to them [my family]," Ray J admitted on the "Drop the Lo" podcast, in July 2025. "I've never wanted to be accepted, I just — I feel like I'm an embarrassment." The R&B star went on to state that while he believes he and Brandy will be fine in the long run, there are still "certain things I feel we should do as a family that her and my cousin might not agree upon, but, you know, to each his own." According to Ray J, his own children have a good relationship with their aunt and cousin, Sy'Rai.

That said, he also remarked that, other than an instance where Ray J briefly joined a phone call between his son and sister to say hello, he and Brandy hadn't really been on speaking terms at the time of the interview. "I gotta do me, you know?" the singer reasoned simply, concluding, "It's like, you don't want me to be me — and I'm talking strictly about, maybe, my cousin, not Brandy — you don't want [me] to be me, you want me to be something else."

In December 2006, an incident occurred that would not only drastically alter the trajectory of Brandy Norwood's life, but end the life of another person entirely. That month, the singer was involved in a four-way car crash on I-405 in Los Angeles that killed a 38-year-old woman by the name of Awatef Aboudihaj. A vehicular manslaughter charge that could have put the "Have You Ever" hitmaker behind bars for up to a year was on the table as a result. However, in December 2007, one year after the accident, authorities confirmed that they would not be moving forward with any charges against Brandy, citing a lack of evidence. But that was far from the end of the debacle.

The R&B icon was hit with several lawsuits in the aftermath of the accident, including from Aboudihaj's parents, her husband, and another driver who was also injured in the crash. Brandy and her lawyer were able to settle all of them out of court, with the final case being put to bed in November 2009, per TMZ. One year prior, in the midst of all the fallout, the "Moesha" star opened up about where she was at mentally in light of everything that had happened. "It was a situation that changed my life forever," she told "Access Hollywood" (via NBC4 Washington) in 2008. "I will never be the same." As we'll soon see, however, these comments were just the tip of the iceberg.

During a 2020 interview with People, Brandy Norwood revealed that her mental state following her 2006 car crash was even worse than she initially let on. In fact, the aftermath of the accident, combined with a string of failed romances, left the "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" star in such an unhappy place that she actually considered taking her own life at one point. Ultimately, it was the fact that she had a daughter to raise that convinced Brandy to hang in there and keep moving foward. "I remember laying in bed super depressed. 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,'" the singer shared. 

In fact, according to Brandy, "If Sy'rai wasn't here, I wouldn't be either. The place that I was in, it just felt like I wasn't going to make it through." But while this came as a shocking revelation to many of her fans in 2020, the former Disney star had actually alluded to this mindset while speaking to Vibe about settling the crash-related lawsuits all the way back in late 2009. "There was a point when I didn't feel like it was okay to live on — because someone else lost their life," she acknowledged at the time. Fortunately, Brandy was able to come out on the other side of this dark period.

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The most recent notable incident involving Brandy Norwood, at the time of writing, came in October 2025, when she suddenly walked off stage during a Chicago concert as part of a co-headlining tour with fellow R&B singer, and former collaborator, Monica. Though the tour was named after Brandy and Monica's Grammy-winning duet "The Boy Is Mine," the gig abruptly turned into a solo affair after Brandy went backstage, as she never returned to finish out the show, leading to concern among those in attendance. 

Following the initial confusion, the R&B icon released a statement to clear the air, clarifying that she bowed out early out of concern for her own health, and thanking her fans for their thoughts and prayers. Fortunately, it doesn't appear as though she was experiencing anything too serious, just a combination of exhaustion and dehydration that made it tough to perform. "I sincerely apologize for the abrupt end to last night's performance in Chicago. After weeks of nonstop rehearsals, last night I experienced dehydration and feelings of wanting to faint," Brandy wrote on Instagram).

She added, "Everyone involved agreed that prioritizing my well-being was of the utmost importance." before thanking Monica for holding down the fort in her absence. The "Moesha" star also confirmed that she went to see a doctor afterwards to get herself checked out. Not long after the Chicago concert, Brandy was back on stage in Indianapolis.