Brandy Norwood has confirmed the rumors she was romantically involved with Boyz II Men singer Wanya Morris as a teenager were true.
In her newly released memoir Phases, the R&B singer sheds light on the pairing, saying it was “wrong” because she was 16 and Morris was 22.
The Moesha star says Morris was a mentor and they grew close when she toured with Boyz II Men in the 1990s.
“It seems to me that he weaponized my admiration, shaped my friendship into dependence, my respect into desire,” she writes.
Brandy, now 47, says the two became intimate around the time they filmed the music video for their duet “Brokenhearted.”
“I was in over my head. Sneaking around with Wanya and lying to my parents had become a constant. They barely liked the idea of me dating at all, and telling them about us was out of question,” she writes as reported by People.
The Grammy-winning singer and actress reveals she lost her virginity to Morris and describes the power imbalance between the two, saying he was “getting what he wanted from someone too young to recognize she was being used.”
The “I Wanna Be Down” singer adds that she tried to keep the romance hidden because deep down she knew it wasn’t right.
“Part of me wanted to retain some semblance of ‘normalcy,’ but also I knew full well that what was happening between me and him was wrong. And yet, my attitude was, ‘This was special. This was real. People just can’t understand,'” she shares.
Brandy reveals the two came up with a story to hide what was going on. “We would pretend patience and claim we were waiting until my eighteenth birthday before pursuing any romantic connection,” she writes.
She says the relationship ended when she found out Morris was cheating and he confessed there had been others.
“I was sixteen years old, dealing with the infidelity of a grown man who I believe had pursued me, took my innocence, and was now revealing he’d not been faithful,” she writes.
Brandy says she believes it’s past time to share her truth.
“The shame ends here. The silence ends here,” she writes. “I was not a fast girl with a crush. I was not a dramatic teenager who couldn’t handle rejection. I was not an unstable obsessive fan. I was a child. And he was an adult. And it’s time the world understood the difference.”
A representative for Morris did not immediately respond to Urban Hollywood 411′s request for comment.
In a resurfaced clip from “The Breakfast Club” recorded around 2014, Morris was asked about his relationship with Brandy and said, “We did the thing when she was like 16, 17, around that time… she was old enough to get it.”
He laughed and added, “We didn’t do it in the states that it was illegal in.”
But in an Instagram live with fans in 2020, he framed the relationship differently.
“She became like my little protégé… Brandy and I were really, really close. Once she turned of age we had been hanging around each other so much that there became an intimate connection. We actually fell in love,” he said.
He also addressed the breakup. “As time progressed, we grew out of each other… she grew out of me and I grew out of her. I might have grown out of her a little bit faster.”
He said her parents knew what was going on, contradicting Brandy’s claim that the two were sneaking around.
“Her mother and father was a part of our relationship. They understood that we had grown close and that’s what it was,” he said.
Phases was released earlier this week and is now on sale.
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