Fantasia keeps working toward a happy ending
By Annette John-Hall
"I can't even read a fairy tale to my 4-year-old daughter," she wrote. That revelation from her book might almost have gone unnoticed if not for her recent appearance on "20/20," which advertised her as being "an illiterate." "They made me look dumb. I can read. I call myself a functional illiterate because I'm not a strong reader," says Fantasia, who dictated "Life Is Not a Fairy Tale" (Simon & Schuster, $21.95) to a free-lance writer. "I had a fear of reading out loud because I didn't know whether people would laugh at me or help me." That fear, she says, paralyzed her. Growing up in High Point, N.C., she missed out on jobs because she was afraid to fill out applications.
"I'm angry that my parents couldn't control me better," she wrote. "I'm angry I have already missed opportunities in my life." As she painstakingly recounts in her book, she was a rape survivor at 14. A high school dropout at 15. A single mother at 17. A survivor of physical abuse, at the hand of her daughter's father, at 18. And by 19, miraculously, thanks to a third-season "American Idol" win, in which she beat out 70,000 contestants, she had been transformed from a struggling gospel singer into a multiplatinum-selling R&B artist - "the next Mary J. Blige," J-Records chief Clive Davis predicted.
"Free Yourself," her 2004 debut, sold almost two million copies. Since then, Fantasia has been on a skyrocket to fame. She has even lent her mouth to a M.A.C. Cosmetics lipstick campaign - the same lips she once cursed as being too big to be beautiful. All the while, she has worked on becoming a better reader. During last year's "American Idol" tour, Fantasia hired a tutor to help her pass the GED. "Lord, we went over so many things over and over," she remembers. "But guess what? I failed. But I'm going to take it over again, and if I don't pass, I'm going to take it again."
Pundits both black and white railed against her for what they said was a glorification of single motherhood in that hit ('Cuz now-a-days it's like a badge of honor/To be a baby mama). She says "American Idol" questioned whether she should have been on the show. Because of her willingness to tell her story, Fantasia has become a poster child for young people like herself. "Fantasia's story sends a strong message to young people," says JoAnn Weinberger, president of the Center for Literacy, a Philadelphia agency that provides literacy services to teenagers and adults. "The fact that she's acknowledged her struggles - and is doing something about it." Since her book has been out, Fantasia says, people "have been telling me stories you wouldn't believe. One 53-year-old lady told me she couldn't read or write, but she was going to learn ... . People make us feel like if you're this or that, you're nobody. If you slip up and have a baby, you're nobody. I wanted to be bold and say I had those situations, but look at me now."
