Daybreak Robinson, a founding member of Oakland’s wildly well-liked ’90s R&B woman group En Vogue, stoked a lot of dire “Hollywood True Story”-type headlines Thursday by revealing that she’s been residing out of her “older car” for almost 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 need to imagine. Sure, she revealed, she initially moved into her car as a result of household drama in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, adopted by a battle along with her supervisor, who, she mentioned, did not correctly help her to find an condo 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 mentioned within the almost 20-minute video that seemed to be recorded from the seat of her automotive. She mentioned: “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 well-liked development for sure individuals, together with single girls, who both can’t afford housing in costly cities or who need to purposely stay off the grid and discover journey, touring from place to put.
There’s a legion of YouTubers and TikTokers, who chronicle their day-to-day challenges and escapades whereas residing out of their automobiles and vans. Van life tradition additionally was the subject of a non-fiction ebook 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 aspect to the van life development, particularly for older adults. A rising variety of single adults, 55 and older, are shedding their houses and could also be compelled to stay of their automobiles after experiencing a wide range of work and private setbacks, based on the American Society on Getting older.
LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 24: (L-R) Members of the musical group ‘En Vogue’ (from L): Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron and Daybreak Robinson pose within the press room on the 2008 BET Awards held on the Shrine Auditorium on June 24, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. (Picture by Frazer Harrison/Getty Photographs)
Whereas the Oakland-reared Robinson mentioned she wasn’t releasing her video “for publicity,” she hinted that she, too, may quickly share her automotive life adventures on YouTube, as she described how automotive 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 College graduate admitted in her video that her first evening alone in her car was “scary,” however she mentioned she quickly realized learn how to make herself really feel protected 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” group in Malibu and that she joined a health club so she will take showers. “I’m a funky diva but I’m not funky!” she mentioned within the video.
Robinson is definitely making an attempt to place a optimistic spin on successfully being homeless as a 58-year-old lady. Like others residing of their automobiles, she’s needed to discover protected 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 toilet. However she takes delight 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 mixture 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 many years since En Vogue final scored successful as one of many best-selling woman 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 certainly one of 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 in addition reunited with En Vogue by way of the 2000s earlier than parting methods once more, resulting in an extended, drawn-out authorized battle during which a decide granted solely Herron and Ellis the unique proper to tour underneath the title En Vogue.
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 10: (L-R) Daybreak Robinson, Rhona Bennett, Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, and Cindy Herron of En Vogueattend Metropolis Of Hope Spirit Of Life Gala 2019 on October 10, 2019 in Santa Monica, California. (Picture by Charley Gallay/Getty Photographs for Metropolis of Hope)
Robinson reunited with En Vogue members once more in 2019 for a efficiency on the Metropolis of Hope Gala. However as lately as final 12 months, she expressed anger over being “forced out” of the group for “no reason.”
“I was ousted,” she mentioned 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 during 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 residing out of her automotive. In her video, she mentioned she went to stay along with her dad and mom in Las Vegas in 2020, in the course of the pandemic.
“That was wonderful until it wasn’t,” she mentioned “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 mentioned she initially lived in her automotive in Las Vegas, till certainly one of her managers urged her to return to Los Angeles and supplied her a spot to remain in his condo. 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 significantly analysis “car life.” She mentioned, “I liked 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 by myself.”
Robinson additionally vowed that she was planning her profession comeback, saying she plans to be “on top again.” She mentioned, “From here in my car to that life, it’s going to be amazing.”
