Brandy Norwood was born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Carson, California. Her father is Willie Norwood, a former gospel singer and choir director, and her mother Sonja Norwood, a former district manager for H&R Block. Her mom quit her job to manage her daughter and Brandy's younger brother Ray J, who is also an entertainer.
Rapper Snoop Dogg is a first cousin.
Brandy started singing as part of the local church choir through her father's work. She performed her first gospel solo at the age of two and decided that she wanted to be a professional singer a couple of years later. Brandy began entering talent shows by the time she was eleven and her talent led to a contract with Teaspoon Productions in 1990. She was given work as a backing vocalist for their boy band Immature, which featured a young Marques Houston.
Her first role in the entertainment business was playing schoolgirl Denesha on the short-lived ABC sitcom Thea between 1993-94. Thea was the first television show to be named after and star a black female comedienne.
Brandy released her self-titled debut album at the age of 15. Her first single "I Wanna Be Down," featuring sexy tough lyrics sung over a hip-hop beat, was a hit, peaking at #6 on the Hot 100. It also topped the Hot R&B Singles Chart for four weeks.
In 1996, basketball star Kobe Bryant was Brandy's prom date at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. It was mostly a publicity stunt, as they were never a couple.
Brandy dated Boyz II Men lead singer Wanya Morris, who was six years older than her, during the late 1990s, starting when she was 16. In her memoir Phases, Brandy said she "genuinely believed it was true love," but she caught him cheating on her.
Brandy starred in the UPN sitcom Moesha as the title character. Despite its popularity, the network decided to cancel the show in 2001 after six seasons on the air. Viewers were left with one of the more notorious unsolved cliffhangers in sitcom history when Moesha's brother Myles got kidnapped and she fainted.
Brandy resumed her music career in 1998 with the widely successful duet with Monica, "
The Boy Is Mine." The song spent 13 weeks at #1 in the US, making it the all-time #1 female duet in American chart history. It was the top-selling international single in Atlantic Records' history.
During the production of the Full Moon album in 2001, Brandy became involved romantically with music producer Robert Smith. The couple began a relationship and she became pregnant by him. The pair concocted a fake marriage to cover up her out-of-wedlock child and a year after the birth of their daughter Sy'rai on June 16, 2002, Brandy and Smith officially announced their separation.
Brandy's pregnancy and birth was tracked by the four-part MTV reality series Brandy: Special Delivery. Sy'rai's name means "princess" in Hebrew.
Brandy was involved in a widely publicized car accident in December 2006 on a California highway that took the life of a 38-year-old mother of two. "It was just one of those experiences you wish would never happen to anybody," she said on VH1s Behind The Music. "That was one of the worst times of my life ... someone lost their life and now everyone is saying that I'm to blame."
Brandy escaped a manslaughter prosecution in the case, but there were multiple lawsuits filed against the singer, all of which were ultimately settled out of court by her civil attorney.
She is a gadget girl. "I cannot live without my iPad and iPhone," Brandy gushed to Us Weekly magazine about what's in her bag. "I play soft music on the rides to the theater, so I have my Beats by Dre tiny earbuds too."
Brandy also enjoys jotting down fresh ideas that come to mind while she's out and about on her portable notebook. "I have a journal that was given to me by my best friend. I journal every day," she shared. "Three long, long pages of my thoughts. I've been doing it on and off for years."
