BARRINO: ‘I DID NOT HARM MYSELF OVER A MAN’
FANTASIA BARRINO fought back tears during a U.S. TV interview on Tuesday (24Aug10) as she recalled her recent suicide attempt, and blamed intense public scrutiny for driving her into a deep depression.
The former American Idol star survived a drug overdose earlier this mon th (Aug10) and later shocked fans by declaring the scare wasn’t an accide nt, insisting, "I knew exactly what I was doing." Barrino’s suicide attempt is rumoured to have been fuelled by her troub led love life, which saw her caught up in divorce proceedings between Nor th Carolina couple Antwaun Cook and his estranged wife Paula.
On Tuesday, the singer appeared on U.S. breakfast programme Good Mornin g America for her first live TV interview since the incident, assuring fa ns she is doing "better" despite her personal woes.
But Barrino is adamant it was the mounting pressures of fame - not Paul a Cook’s accusations the singer had an affair with her husband - that dro ve her over the edge.
She explains: "There’s just so many things that I had to deal with - me almost losing my whole career, not having management, and lawyers and ev erybody who said they had my back, nobody taking care of me, me taking ca re of my whole family. (There is) so much that people don’t understand, t hey just see the glitz and the glamour and they feel like life is so perf ect (for me). But we (celebrities) are human and we go through things…
"I think everybody feels like I tried to harm myself over a man. But I’ ve been through a lot of bad relationships. That had something to do with it because it was so heavy, it was brand new information. I was already going through so much but I think it was just six years of everything, of me holding everything on the inside and not letting it out. I just got v ery, very tired." Barrino has admitted dating Cook "off and on for 11 months" but is adam ant she thought he was single.
The singer insists she is now putting the past behind her - she’s seein g a life coach and is eager to go back to work.
She adds: "There are people who love and support me and just want to se e me keep going and who’ve been through the same thing… and I said, ‘Yo u know what, there’s no perfect person’. I’m just thankful for all the do ctors who were there for me because they didn’t treat me like Fantasia, t hey treated me like ‘Tasia, and I needed that."
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