Image via Complex Original
This feature is a part of Aaliyah Week, celebrating the 20th anniversary of her debut album. Check in every day this week for another feature on the hit-maker.
While we've already debated Aaliyah's best songs and brought you some pretty rare pictures of the R&B starlet, but there's still more to her legacy we haven't explored. Namely, her personality and life behind the scenes. To hear anyone who knew her tell it, Aaliyah was a sweet, playful, determined young woman, who never acted like a diva despite all her early success. We combed through articles about her life to find the minute details about her you probably missed. Here's 25 Things You Didn't Know About Aaliyah.
RELATED: Why Aaliyah's Best Music Isn't Online
RELATED: 50 Photos of Aaliyah That You've (Probably) Never Seen
RELATED: The 25 Best Aaliyah Songs
When Aaliyah was a child, her father ran a homeless shelter where Aaliyah would sometimes go and sing for homeless people.
[via]
In 1989, she appeared on Star Search. She performed "My Funny Valentine" and cried after she lost.
[via]
When she was 11 she performed for five nights with Gladys Knight at Bally's Last Vegas casino. Her uncle Barry Hankerson was married to Gladys.
[via]
When she auditioned for acceptance Detroit High School for Fine and Performing Arts, she performed "Ave Maria" in I
[via]
She had a full time bodyguard with her when she attended high school.
[via]
She graduated high school with a 4.0. GPA
[via]
She had a pillow named Wilson that she would take everywhere, similar to Tom Hank's character in Castaway
[via]
In her early career, she rocked dark shades for so long a rumor started that she either had a lazy eye or a glass eye.
[via]
When she changed her hairstyle, Aaliyah took her mother's advice to cover her left eye, much like Hollywood star Ve
[via]
Some radio program directors didn't like the the crickets on "One In A Million," including a program director in Chicago who said they wouldn't play a record that had crickets in it. Atlantic Records actually wanted to drop a radio friendly remix but Aaliyah's team grabbed all the two inch reels of the songs out of the studios so no one could do an unauthorized remix.
[via]
Aaliyah and Kidada Jones once prank called Kidada's father, Quincy Jones, and Aaliyah pretended to be Christina Aguilera. Aaliyah sang for Quincy over the phone and he was convinced that it was really Christina.
[via]
Aaliyah didn't really like Static Major's versions of "Are You That Somebody?" and "Try Again" but she went and recorded them anyway.
[via]
She once had a bet with Missy Elliott about who would wear a dress first because neither of them ever wore dresses.
[via]
She once had acclaimed music video director Paul Hunter (who shot the video for "One In A Million" and "We Need A Resolution") shoot a home video of her and her friends doing a spoof of the Spice Girls called "The Spicier Girls."
[via]
She got $1,500,000 for her role in Romeo Must Die and $5,000,000 for her role in Queen of the Damned.
[via]
If someone was really "irking" her, like the overzealous production assistant on the set of Romeo Must Die
[via]
Just before she passed, Aaliyah was going to start a Japanese inspired girls clothing line with with Kidada Jones c
[via]
"Rock The Boat" was written two years before it was released because the label didn't think Aaliyah was ready for such a sexual song.
[via]
She was set to collaborate with Janet Jackson.
[via]
Prior to her death, Aaliyah expressed a desire to learn about the burgeoning UK garage scene she had heard about at
[via]
She was set to play the lead in a Whitney Houston-produced remake of the '70s film, Sparkle, as well as the lead role in 2003's Honey.
[via]