Singer and Broadway Star Brandy Norwood is the latest cover girl for Uptown Magazine’s June/July issue. Brandy, who has over 20 years of success as a triple-threat in entertainment, is in the midst of playing Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway, and has a new sitcom and EP on the horizon. She speaks candidly about how she has completely transformed her life, her struggle with depression, her new mission in life, reconnecting with her younger self, dealing with the death of her idol Whitney Houston and the difficulty of breaking up with her former fiancè, music publisher Ryan Press.
Brandy on the infamous fatal car accident: “I was asking what have I done wrong and what am I not doing? When you are at that type of low your whys come in a lot of different ways. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to do anything. I really stopped dreaming.”
On her celebrity: “I don’t view myself as a celebrity. It’s all about the intention. It’s not about me. I thought that it was before. But, now I know that it is about other people. Who else could it be about?”
On how playing Roxie Hart in Chicago changed her life: “I stepped into something that I was born to do and I didn’t know it. I walked on the stage and my entire life reawakened … It’s about making people feel good about themselves and helping people dream. The vain stuff, like the pictures I took for this magazine and being in shows, I love! But it is all just the polish. I’m not a celebrity. A star guides. There is a difference.”
On Whitney Houston: “I think about her every day. She is everywhere. She is with me all the time. She’s always there. Whitney was the possibility of dreams coming true. I loved her. I loved her personality. I loved the way she danced. I loved her smile and her voice.”
On her breakup: “Ryan [Press] and I were just two completely different people and we found that out when we were already in love with each other. Sometimes it happens. It hurt him, it hurt me and it hurt my daughter. It was a really hard time and another phase of the sadness that was a cloud for a while.”
On what she will never do again in a relationship: “I will not mix business with pleasure anymore. I think that’s one of the things that does not work for me. I get confused about who a person is. That’s one of the things that I know that I will never ever do if I am ever to have time or make time for another relationship.”
On wanting to play Dorothy in the highly-anticipated revival of The Wiz: “I am Dorothy and I am meant to do it on Broadway. Portraying Dorothy is a dream and I just want to experience my dreams. That’s what life is about. God created us to thrive.”
On her upcoming new music: “It’s going to be five amazing songs that are very, very authentic. It has nothing to do with fitting in. This will be my own thing and my own way. Brandy is not in a box anymore. I really want to sing songs about the way I dream of feeling about love. It’s not about the love that I’ve experienced before, it’s about the love that I want to receive.”
Behind The Scenes Video…
