As one of the members of the iconic ’90s R&B group En Vogue, Dawn Robinson at one time sat in the upper stratosphere of celebrity performers. The group was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards, and its hits flooded the radio.
Now, she has revealed that after having coped with personal and family struggles, she has been living in her car for the past three years.
Robinson shared the emotional news of her housing situation Tuesday on YouTube. She said that she got feedback from people telling her, "You shouldn’t talk about it because you’re a celebrity and what if they judge you?”
“I’m like, OK, and what if?” she said. “What if they judge me? So what? We’re all judged. Life is life.”
With a deep breath, Robinson revealed that she has been living in her car.
“You guys, for the past three, almost three years, I have been living in my car,” she said. “I said it. Oh, my God, it’s out.”
Robinson said she was living with her parents in Las Vegas in 2020 and “that was wonderful until it wasn’t.”
While they were living together, Robinson said, her mother began to grow angry and began taking her anger out on her. Robinson decided to leave her parents' home. She stayed in her car for a month before her co-manager offered to let her stay with him in Los Angeles.
“He said, ‘I don’t have a lot of room, but I’ll make room for you,’” Robinson said. “But then, when I got to his place, he actually didn’t have room for me.”
Robinson said her co-manager instead paid for her to stay in a hotel. What was supposed to be a one-night stay ended up lasting eight months as Robinson struggled to find apartments.
Robinson then began researching "car life." She found that there was a whole community of folks living in their vehicles and "loved" what she was seeing.
Robinson said she left her hotel on March 9, 2022.
“I felt free. That was a sense of freedom that I had. ... I felt like I was on a camping trip,” she said.
Robinson shared her story in hope of challenging others to "do the things that are scary" and follow their own paths.
"This is not like, 'Oh, my God, poor Dawn. She's living in her car and it's terrible,'" she said. “I’m learning about who I am; I’m learning myself as a person, as a woman.”
