Dawn Robinson, a former member of R&B girl group En Vogue, is homeless. On Tuesday, the singer shared a surprising confession with her fans: She has been living out of her car for the past several years. 

“You guys, for the past three, almost three years, I have been living in my car,” she said in the video posted on YouTube. “I said it. Oh my God, it’s out.”

Dawn Robinson explains how she ended up living in her car

Robinson explained that in 2020, she was living with her family in Las Vegas. “That was wonderful until it wasn’t,” she said, adding that her mother had anger issues that “she was taking out on me.”

After leaving her mother’s home, Robinson briefly lived in her car before relocating to Los Angeles at the urging of her manager. He put her up in a hotel for eight months, but when she tried to get an apartment, she claimed he stood in her way. 

“Sometimes people want to trap you and keep you in a situation where you’re vulnerable and depending on them,” she said. 

As she navigated her issues with her manager, Robinson discovered a community of people who lived in their vehicles. 

“I told my assistant, I have been researching car life. There’s a whole community of people that live in their cars and a whole community of people that live in their RVs. And a whole community of people that live in their vans … I loved what I was seeing,” she said. 

Robinson headed to Malibu and began to adjust to her nomadic lifestyle. 

“I felt free,” she said. “I was so free … I felt like I was on a camping trip. It just felt like it was the right thing to do. I didn’t regret it.”

Robinson was a member of the Grammy-nominated En Vogue from 1989 to 1997, singing lead on hits like “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It).” After leaving En Vogue, she performed with the group Lucy Pearl and released a solo album. She rejoined En Vogue in the 2010s and performed with the group again in 2019. In her video, she expressed her hope that she’d experience a career “resurgence.”   

The En Vogue singer doesn’t want people to pity her

Robinson admitted that when she was at the height of her career in the 1990s, she never would have imagined that she would end up homeless. But she didn’t want people to pity her. 

“This is not like, ‘Oh my God, poor Dawn. She’s living in her car, it’s terrible. Oh, woe is me.’ It’s not that,” she said.

Car-living is an unexpected but important part of her life’s journey, Robinson said.  

“I needed to go through this fire,” she said, describing her recent experiences as a “dark night of the soul.” Being estranged from her family has been difficult, as was dealing with the death of her beloved dog, Max. But she was still “proud of what she accomplished” on her own. 

“I wouldn’t trade my experiences and what I’ve gone through for the world,” Robinson said. “I need to do this alone … I needed to do this for me.”

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