Daybreak Robinson, a founding member of Oakland’s wildly fashionable ’90s R&B lady group En Vogue, stoked a number of dire “Hollywood True Story”-type headlines Thursday by revealing that she’s been dwelling out of her “older car” for practically three years.
However in a video loaded to her YouTube channel, the 58-year-old “Funky Diva” insisted that her scenario isn’t as grim as individuals may wish to consider. Sure, she revealed, she initially moved into her car as a consequence of household drama in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, adopted by a battle along with her supervisor, who, she stated, did not correctly help her find an house in Los Angeles. However Robinson defined that she herself was motivated to contemplate “car life.”
“This is not like, ‘Oh my God, poor Dawn. She’s living in her car. It’s terrible. Oh, woe is me,’” a make-up free Robinson stated within the practically 20-minute video that gave the impression to be recorded from the seat of her automobile. She stated: “I’m learning about who I am. I’m learning about myself as a person, as a woman.”
Also referred to as “van life,” “car life” is an more and more fashionable pattern for sure individuals, together with single girls, who both can’t afford housing in costly cities or who wish to purposely stay off the grid and discover journey, touring from place to position.
There’s a legion of YouTubers and TikTokers, who chronicle their day-to-day challenges and escapades whereas dwelling out of their automobiles and vans. Van life tradition additionally was the subject of a non-fiction guide and the 2020, Oscar-winning movie “Nomadland.” Within the film, Frances McDormand performed a widow who strikes into her van and drifts across the nation after shedding her job.
However this movie and different accounts present there’s a darkish facet to the van life pattern, particularly for older adults. A rising variety of single adults, 55 and older, are shedding their houses and could also be pressured to stay of their automobiles after experiencing a wide range of work and private setbacks, in line with the American Society on Ageing.
Whereas the Oakland-reared Robinson stated she wasn’t releasing her video “for publicity,” she hinted that she, too, may quickly share her automobile life adventures on YouTube, as she described how automobile life turned out to be proper for her at this second in her life.
“Sometimes in life, we end up in situations that we weren’t expecting,” Robinson wrote within the caption of her video. “There’s something we need to learn or teach but we’re too afraid to push ourselves out of our comfort zones to do it so the universe does it for us!”
“I took a risk and jumped head first into car life,” she added, “and WOW, what a crazy, fun, sometimes scary ride it’s been lol!”
The San Leandro Excessive Faculty graduate admitted in her video that her first evening alone in her car was “scary,” however she stated she quickly discovered the best way to make herself really feel secure by overlaying the home windows at evening and guarding her interactions with individuals. She additionally described the primary time she watched a sundown from her car as “beautiful.”
Robinson moreover shared that she has spent a while amongst a “car life” neighborhood in Malibu and that she joined a fitness center so she will take showers. “I’m a funky diva but I’m not funky!” she stated within the video.
Robinson is definitely attempting to place a constructive spin on successfully being homeless as a 58-year-old girl. Like others dwelling of their automobiles, she’s needed to discover secure locations to park and sleep in a single day and has to depend on public restrooms in parks or eating places to brush tooth or go to the lavatory. However she takes satisfaction in how she’s managed: “It’s just me, that’s the beauty of it, learning I can do all these things myself. I’m really, really proud of myself. Nobody could have told me I could do that.”
No matter Robinson’s declaration, her video prompted hypothesis that she’s been left destitute by a mix of things: her self-reported household estrangement, her well-known skilled downturn and her falling out along with her En Vogue members, Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones.
It’s true that it’s been a long time since En Vogue final scored a success as one of many best-selling lady teams of all time, following such successes as “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It),” “Free Your Mind” and “Giving Him Something He Can Feel.” Robinson selected to go away the group in 1997 after they scored one in all their final hits, “Don’t Let Go (Love),” with Robinson singing lead vocals.
Robinson subsequently joined the R&B group Lucy Pearl, launched a solo profession, but additionally reunited with En Vogue by means of the 2000s earlier than parting methods once more, resulting in an extended, drawn-out authorized battle by which a decide granted solely Herron and Ellis the unique proper to tour below the title En Vogue.
Robinson reunited with En Vogue members once more in 2019 for a efficiency on the Metropolis of Hope Gala. However as not too long ago as final 12 months, she expressed anger over being “forced out” of the group for “no reason.”
“I was ousted,” she stated in one other YouTube video. Recording herself on a seashore someplace, Robinson didn’t specify whether or not this ouster occurred within the Nineties or later. “I felt betrayed,” she continued. “I was just scared, because I’m on my own, and I helped build this brand. … I just felt it was wrong.”
In 2021, Robinson additionally gave an interview by which she claimed that she and the opposite rEn Vogue “divas” have been paid a pittance on their rise to fame, simply $0.02 per album.
It seems that Robinson might have been complaining about her former En Vogue colleagues and their low pay, whereas coping with the setbacks that led to dwelling out of her automobile. In her video, she stated she went to stay along with her mother and father in Las Vegas in 2020, in the course of the pandemic.
“That was wonderful until it wasn’t,” she stated “I love my mom, but she became very angry. A lot of her anger, she was taking out on me. I was her target all the time and I was like, ‘I can’t deal with this.’”
Robinson stated she initially lived in her automobile in Las Vegas, till one in all her managers urged her to return to Los Angeles and provided her a spot to remain in his house. However when Robinson arrived in Los Angeles, this unnamed supervisor “actually didn’t have room for me.”
Robinson ended checking right into a resort for an evening, and that resort keep prolonged to eight months, prompting her to noticeably analysis “car life.” She stated, “I cherished what I used to be seeing. I simply thought, ‘Wow I can do that. I can do this.’”
Robinson revealed that the hardest part of the past three years was when her 16-year-old dog, Max, died in her car. “That was hard,” she said. “That was the longest relationship I’ve ever had.I assumed, now I’m actually alone.”
Robinson additionally vowed that she was planning her profession comeback, saying she plans to be “on top again.” She stated, “From here in my car to that life, it’s going to be amazing.”
As Robinson plots her comeback, her ex-husband, Andre Allen, has provided to offer her a job to assist tide her over, E! Information reported. Allen, who was married to the singer from 2003 to 2010, advised TMZ that Robinson might contemplate a profession in hospitality, particularly on the Hilton Resort manufacturers, the place he’s a gross sales govt.
