Unbreak My Heart: A Memoir (14 page)

All of the siblings together at Grandma Eva’s house on Easter Sunday.

At age sixteen, I was already practicing how to look like a star.

With my senior prom date, Ferron, when he came to pick me up from my house.

This picture is from my senior year in high school. Note my monogrammed sweater!

My sisters and I performed at Anne Orundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland. I played piano for the group and sang a solo of the gospel song “God Is.”

All smiles at my graduation from Glen Burnie High School in Glen Burnie, Maryland.

I wore this outfit when my sisters and I performed a showcase for L.A. Reid and Babyface in Atlanta shortly before I signed with LaFace Records. I was about twenty-three years old here.

Performing as the Braxton Sisters at Bowie State University in Maryland. I’m right in the middle!

A signed promo shot from the Braxton Sisters’ single, “The Good Life.” This is the only single all five of us ever released as a family group.

(© Robert Manella for Atlantic Records)

In 1995, LaFace Records hosted a party for me, their new artist, and my family drove up from Maryland to take part in the festivities.

(courtesy of Anita and Steve Shevett)

My sisters (Trina, Traci, Tamar, and Towanda) joined me for a European tour on the heels of the success of my 1996
Secrets
album.

I was honored to be cast as the first African American woman to play a leading role in a Disney production on Broadway when I starred as Belle in
Beauty and the Beast
. This was our cast bow at the show’s final performance.

(courtesy of Anita and Steve Shevett, used with permission from Disney)

A promotional postcard used to advertise my Broadway role in
Beauty and the Beast
.

(© Disney. Photography by Lynn Goldsmith)