Unbreak My Heart: A Memoir (25 page)

So I found some other ways to bring in money. That August, despite my doctor’s misgivings, I agreed to do the seventh season of
Dancing with the Stars
. Then in October, I signed on with Atlantic Records to start on yet another album—my manager then, Randy Philips, thought that was a good idea. I had a couple possibilities on the table, but I went with Atlantic because I liked the CEO’s energy. In addition to needing income, I also wanted to squash some rumors that had surfaced. After I was admitted to the hospital, the whispers began that I was too sick to work—and I knew I had to get in front of that story.

So just before I took the dance floor with my Russian partner, Alec Mazo, I announced to the world that I had microvascular angina. What I didn’t reveal is that my heart condition was connected to lupus, because the last thing I needed was for my new record company to lose confidence that I could deliver. That’s why I put on my dancing shoes and plastered on a smile—I wanted to make everyone believe that I was feeling just fine. I also had something to prove to myself: Even with lupus, I could live a full and fearless life.

My rehearsals with Alec were between six and eight hours long every day. I pushed myself above and beyond. I brought along a nurse in case anything went wrong (I pretended she was my assistant), and she monitored my blood pressure during breaks. The doctor had put me on an anti-inflammatory drug called Relafen, which sometimes makes the mind go blank. I didn’t tell Alec I had lupus, but I did ask him to show me a few basic moves I could do if I ever got stuck. All things considered, I did fine. There were a couple mornings when I struggled to get out of bed because our practice sessions were so strenuous—but I bet a lot of the other dancers felt that way, too.

Alec was an amazing dancer, but we didn’t always see eye to eye. He’s an atheist—and because I was feeling so emotionally raw at the time, it didn’t really help for me to spend most of my days around a person who didn’t believe in God’s existence. If I mentioned that I was about to say a prayer, for instance, he’d reply with a line like, “I don’t believe in prayer.” In the midst of everything I was going through, I was trying to reconnect with my spirituality—and Alec wasn’t someone who could help me do that.

Even still, I enjoyed the daily workouts (I lost eight pounds!) as well as our live performances. From my first cha-cha-cha to my last West Coast swing, it was a lot of fun to be out on the floor. And to be honest, I was actually disappointed when I got voted off in the fifth week of the show—it kinda broke my heart. But the feeling was short-lived, because I accomplished what I’d set out to do: I waltzed right through my fear and danced myself back to life.

Even before the world knew I had lupus, I discovered that there’s just one way to conquer it—one deep breath at a time. Even today, that’s my strategy. I have those moments when I’m feeling like the old me—energetic, exuberant, and ready to tackle my to-do list. I also have those moments when I’m feeling wiped out and a little disoriented. Yet each day, I wake up with an incentive that’s far more valuable to me than anything else: I want to be here as long as I can. For my family. For my loved ones. For myself.

K
eri and I separated. By the time we officially announced that excruciating choice to the world in November 2009, we’d already made a private agreement: We would do everything we could to keep our sons’ lives normal. When two adults decide that their romance is over, that’s certainly painful—but for the children involved, that choice can bring emotional devastation. Keri and I care deeply for our boys—so we made a promise that even after we split, we’d always put their needs ahead of our own.

As far as separations go, ours was pretty amicable. It wasn’t that we didn’t love each other anymore. Keri has always been my best friend. But some of the issues between us just put too much of a burden on our marriage. We found ourselves disagreeing more than we ever had, and our passion and connection leaked away a little at a time. Marriage is challenging—but when you also work with the person you’re married to, it can be an even bigger struggle. Just before Keri moved out, the two of us sat down with our boys. “Mommy and Daddy are going to separate,” we told them, “but you’ll still get to see both of us as much as you want.”

We’ve lived by our promise to coparent. Even after we first separated in Atlanta, we stayed in the same house for a while. We now each have our own places in Los Angeles, and our kids spend time at both homes. Keri takes Diezel to school, then picks up Denim at the end of the day; after school, Keri and Denim often shoot some hoops. Once homework is done, the three will sometimes wrestle around on the floor, either at my place or at Keri’s home, which is close by. When I’m out of town for work, the boys stay with their father. Keri and I have also agreed that we’ll always take our sons on a vacation every year—with just the four of us. At some point down the line, if either Keri or I have a significant other in the picture, we’ll have to figure out how to take that into account. We just think it’s fair to give our kids the experience of having both their parents available. They didn’t choose to separate us—we did.

As Keri and I brought our marriage to a tearful finish, I threw myself into my next album. When I’d arrived at Atlantic, Craig Kallman, the CEO, had first said he wanted me to do pop. But then the directors in A&R thought they should take me back to the sultry songs that I first became known for. The bottom line is that no one was quite sure how to package me, so we eventually decided on a pathway right down the middle: We’d start by appealing to my core audience with some classic Toni Braxton tracks, then we’d cross over to pop.

I was excited about including a collaboration, which is why we called in Trey Songz. After several months in the studio, I’d recorded more than thirty tracks—and we narrowed that down to ten. In November 2009, my duet with Trey Songz, “Yesterday,” hit the airwaves. But when we discovered that a number of the other tracks were leaked over the Internet (including a couple of the planned collaborations), we pushed back the full record’s release date by a few months. That gave me time to go back into the studio and create more music.
Pulse
—my sixth studio album—finally came out on May 4, 2010.

True story: During one of my heart scares, I met an elderly woman while I was in cardiac rehab. “What are you doing in here?” she asked me. “You’re so young.” I told her about my heart condition. “You know what?” she told me. “I’ve had four heart attacks.
Four.
You can’t be afraid. You can’t stop living.” As it turns out, that woman had just arrived back from enjoying a vacation with her boyfriend—a forty-year-old “younger man.” I don’t know that woman’s name, and I may never see her again, but she gave me something important that day—hope. The doctors had told me that I’d never be able to perform again, and her conversation was like a heartbeat, a pulse, that brought me back to life. So I named my album
Pulse
as a reminder of that hope. It was also the sign of a gradual comeback: The album debuted in the ninth spot on the
Billboard
200 chart.
Exhale
.

JUST AS
PULSE
was gathering steam, an issue arose that shifted the headlines—I was being sued. Back when I was hospitalized in Vegas and then confined to bed rest, I was forced to cancel the remainder of my shows at the Flamingo. Since I was the show’s producer, that meant I’d had to hire companies to provide services like lighting and flooring. But when my show was cut short, I could no longer pay those companies the full amount we’d contracted for—so one by one, each company served me with a lawsuit.

At first, I thought I was on firm financial ground: I’d taken out a liability insurance policy that included coverage for event cancellation. But when the insurer eventually discovered that the underwriter hadn’t specifically listed my pericarditis condition in the policy, the insurance company declined to cover the expenses related to my show’s cancellation. In short, they got off on a technicality—and I was suddenly on the hook for millions.

Over several months, I tried everything I could to negotiate some kind of settlement with my creditors. I used all of my earnings from
Dancing with the Stars
to hire lawyers who could work out a deal on my behalf. We fought and we fought—but in the end, it didn’t make much of a difference. I still had debts totaling in the millions and no way to pay them off. If I wanted to keep providing for my boys, I knew what I had to do. On September 30, 2010, in a Los Angeles court, I filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Again.

Going broke is one thing—but doing so twice in front of the whole world makes the humiliation practically unbearable. I’ll be honest with you: When I filed for the second time, I felt dumb and dumber. It was as if I could hear the whole world shouting in unison, “We told you so!” I’d tried so hard to repair the damage from my first bankruptcy—only to find myself back in the same situation. After the 1998 filing, I couldn’t stop crying—but the second time around, my tears showed up in the form of fury. Even though I had no control over getting a heart condition or lupus, I was still so angry. A single question kept reeling through my head:
How did I get here again?

I became very sick—in part, that’s how I got here again. To those who see my second bankruptcy as confirmation that I’m indeed a reckless spender, I understand why it appears that way. That isn’t the truth—but trying to convince anyone of that just sounds like the second verse of another sad love song. So I’ll simply say this: I hate that it happened. I always will. I’m human, so even now, I’m working through the emotional fallout. But rather than wasting a lot of energy on regret or browbeating myself about the situation, I have chosen to look ahead. In fact, that’s really what my entire story is about—falling down, getting back up, learning from my missteps, and then moving forward. I’m still here. Still standing. Still breathing. And that means that I’ve been given the same gift that we all received when we woke up this morning—the opportunity to start fresh.

Just as they’d done the first time around, the bankruptcy assessors took stock of my belongings. By choice, I wasn’t home the day they came to my house in Atlanta: I stayed at my mom’s house while my sister Towanda managed everything. Later, she told me the assessor said, “I hate to come and do this, because there are others who have filed bankruptcy who aren’t having to go through this—so let’s just get it over with.” That’s one reason I believe that the point was to make an example out of me. After rifling through my possessions, they took all of my jewelry (including my wedding bands).

In some ways, the second bankruptcy was more financially devastating than the first. Don’t get me wrong: Even before it hit, things were already tight, because I’d been moving around money to pay off all those creditors (and watching my checking account dwindle down by the day). And on top of that, I had medical bills (although thankfully, I had great health insurance coverage). But here’s what made the second time around so hard: I lost my home in Vegas. The whole country was in a housing crisis, so the banks wouldn’t work with me to keep the mortgage in place. So we moved to the house I still owned in Atlanta, the one I’d already been trying to sell. I was able to work out a deal to stay in that house, but the bank eventually foreclosed on that home as well—which is why I moved back to Los Angeles and moved into a rented home. In addition to that stress, I’d also taken out a personal loan for millions to launch the Vegas show—but because I’d become so ill, I couldn’t repay that loan. And through all of this, I still had a child with special needs—which can potentially cost thousands per year. I didn’t have nearly enough money to cover my expenses. That’s why I started hustling up tour dates overseas—I did some corporate gigs in Russia, which pays very well (my body wasn’t ready to do a full tour). That gave me enough money just to maintain a basic existence.

As fall gave way to winter and 2010 stretched to a close, I decided it was time to begin a new chapter in one particular area of my life—my health. In the months after I was diagnosed with lupus, I’d gotten caught up in the notion that it was best to hide my condition. I really believed that if others knew I had lupus, they wouldn’t hire me or even want to be associated with me. But carrying such a big secret is a form of bondage—and above all else, I want to be free.

I’m not a victim of lupus—I’m an overcomer. With each passing day, I’m learning more and more about how to best manage my symptoms so that I can show up as a full participant in my life. Why should I allow what others might say to keep me from declaring that victory? I shouldn’t. So just before Thanksgiving, I attended an awards luncheon hosted by Lupus L.A.—an organization I’ve teamed up with to spread the word about a condition people know too little about. That afternoon, I walked up to the podium with one message: “I am a lupus survivor.” Five simple words. One powerful anchor. No more hiding.

I
never wanted to do a reality show. Ever. I didn’t have some secret dream to see “reality show star” after my name. So several years ago when my sister Tamar first approached me about the idea of creating a docudrama with our family at the center, my answer was very clear: absolutely not. But Tamar persisted. In 2011, she finally uttered the sentence that she knew would press my button: “We all helped you get your start in the music business—now you need to do this for your sisters.” I caved.

It’s no coincidence that Tamar is the one who approached me with the idea—she has always wanted to be famous. Even back when she was five or six, she used to dress up and pretend she was directing a choir. By the time she was twelve or thirteen, I knew she really wanted it—she’d ask me a thousand questions, and she was curious about every aspect of the record business. We could all see that she wanted it so badly (she had a drive and excitement that I recognized . . . ), so I did everything I could to teach her about the industry. Tamar’s passion is what led her to keep pressing me to do a show—and that passion, coupled with her personality, made her destined to become such a star on the WE tv series. Our show premiered on April 12, 2011—and there hasn’t been a quiet moment since.