The Tragic Life Of Fantasia Barrino

When Fantasia Barrino won the third season of “American Idol” in 2004, she was a 19-year-old single mother from North Carolina. Her seemingly gritty backstory was the very reason many “Idol” fans rallied around her, and Barrino continued to triumph over adversity throughout her post-“Idol” career.

Barrino has had her share of successes after “Idol,” including the memoir-turned-Lifetime movie “Life Is Not a Fairy Tale: The Fantasia Barrino Story,” a starring role in “The Color Purple” on Broadway, several successful albums, and a Grammy win.

Barrino’s personal struggles, though, have also followed her throughout her career. Her willingness to persevere through adversity served her well on “Idol,” and that strength has also helped her maintain her career through her more difficult stretches, including a suicide attempt and the death of a family member.

Read on to learn more about Barrino’s challenging life, from her difficult early years through her time in the limelight and the pressures of fame.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

She was sexually assaulted in high school

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Fantasia Barrino first experienced tragedy at an early age, the star painfully described in her 2005 memoir, “Life is Not a Fairy Tale.”

Barrino revealed that she was raped by a popular boy in their high school auditorium. “I can barely recall the details,” she wrote of the assault, which took place when she was in ninth grade. “I just know that I shudder to think of how that single act changed me in a way that I didn’t need to be changed.”

Eventually, Barrino told her mother about what happened, who helped her report the crime to her school. “He ended up getting into some trouble, but not the trouble he deserved for stripping me of the little innocence I had left,” she wrote.

Barrino explained in a 2007 interview with “O, The Oprah Magazine” that — after reporting the boy — it became more difficult for her to attend school. “We turned the guy in, but going back to school was hell; his homeboys would say, ‘I’m going to do to you exactly what he did,’” she said. “They thought it was funny. That’s when I quit school.”

Fantasia Barrino has had a long struggle with illiteracy

Fantasia Barrino revealed in her memoir her lifelong struggles with reading and called herself a “functionin’ illiterate,” writing, “I ‘get by’ in life, but my readin’ isn’t what it should be. I am workin’ on it. I am still not confident enough with words or letters.”

Barrino’s reading challenges made her experience on “American Idol” more difficult, since portions of the show required her to read from a script. The singer told ABC News in a 2007 interview that she successfully faked her way through the scripted portions of the show. “Somebody would say, ‘You know, it’s pronounced this way’ and I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you know, I’m country,’” she recalled.

Barrino’s famous “Idol” rendition of the George Gershwin standard “Summertime,” which judge Simon Cowell once dubbed his favorite moment of the show, was a challenge for the star. As she wasn’t familiar with the song, she was given a page of lyrics to learn, Barrino told ABC News. Fearful of the show’s vocal coaches discovering her reading difficulties, Barrino instead listened to the song until she memorized the words, which resulted in her successful performance.

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Three years after dropping out of high school and moving into her own apartment, 17-year-old Fantasia Barrino gave birth to daughter Zion. “When I moved out, started hanging out with the wrong people, and got pregnant, people were like, ‘She ain’t goin’ nowhere now,’” Barrino told “O, The Oprah Magazine” in 2007 about her struggles during that period of her life. “I’d lost myself.”

Barrino’s struggles were made worse by the violence she said she experienced at the hands of her then-boyfriend and Zion’s father, Brandel Shouse, who was later arrested and charged for the abuse he reportedly inflicted on Barrino.

“I don’t talk about it a lot but the relationship that I was in was very abusive,” she divulged to ABC News in 2007. Per the outlet, court documents claimed that Shouse’s behavior included “choking her with both hands” and “punching her about the face and head.”

“I looked in the mirror and I said to myself, ‘Look at me. I can’t see out of one eye. I have knots on my head. My lips are swollen,’” Barrino recalled. “And my little brother came to me one day and I remember he says, ‘Oh, you look bad.’”

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.