The Color Purple singer-actress Fantasia Barrino got real about her 2010 overdose in Variety's 'The Power of Women' issue. As a subject in one of the issue's four cover stories – others include Billie Eilish, Carey Mulligan, and Lily Gladstone – Barrino, 39, detailed surviving the overdose and finding her "purpose" in the aftermath.
In the story, Barrino shared that she “just wanted the noise to stop," instead of describing the incident as a suicide attempt. At the time, Barrino was the sole financial support for her family, and her father, Joseph Barrino, filed a $10 million libel suit against her. Joseph claimed that Barrino's 2005 memoir, Life is Not A Fairy Tale, contained "false, exaggerated, sensational, intentional and malicious untruths" about him being money-hungry. Also in 2010, Barrino's house was in foreclosure.
While hospitalized, Barrino recalled that a nurse approached her with a stack of magazines, all with her on the cover. “‘You see that young lady,” the nurse told Barrino. “She’s strong. She’s a blessing.” The nurse also extended a message to Barrino: “Don’t you come back in here no more. You fight.”
“I left that hospital and said, ‘I’ll never do that again, because I have purpose," Barrino continued. “I’m going to speak into every young person’s life and tell them, ‘Don’t you dare give up.’"
The third season American Idol winner also compared herself to an eagle, an animal symbolic of trimuph and victory.
“I don’t care if it gets ugly again,” she said. “I don’t care if there’s storms. I realized I have the spirit of an eagle,” she says, spreading her arms like wings. “They fly over storms.”
The mother of three brings her undefeated spirit to The Color Purple musicial film, which costars Taraji P. Henson, H.E.R., Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, and Corey Hawkins and will release on Dec. 25.
