Brandy Norwood

I cried, I was so overwhelmed to meet Michael Jackson.

I’ve just got to get that album out. I have to get it out, if it’s the last thing I do.

I definitely felt like I needed a break, because when you do so much, you’re not able to appreciate the things that you accomplish.

When you fall in love, you wanna share it with people but you know there are some things that you need to keep to yourself, ’cause privacy makes things last longer, I feel.

I’m a woman now.

It feels so great to be back on the scene.

My daughters are the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived, I probably wouldn’t be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring, quite often the hard way.

My father was a perfectionist. We had to hop to everything and have marvelous table manners. I could only wear navy blue and gray and white. He wanted me to be interested in tennis and horses just like a little princess, but I couldn’t stand such things.

I am convinced that the norm in Russia should become a family with three children.

I met with my lawyers. They gave me all the wrong advice. For a long time I refused to accept the child was mine. I should have met her, arranged a DNA test and accepted my responsibility.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

My daughter hasn’t seen me with anybody in five years. I’m very, very selective when it comes to that because I want to make sure that it’s real. I don’t want her to see me with just anybody because she means everything to me.

I tell my children now that they are older, ‘If something happens to me… don’t make no big fuss over me. Don’t make no big expense on my funeral. Don’t put any pressure on the rest of the family. I’ve loved everybody, and I hope they loved me. But don’t create this big expense for the family.’

Up until I was 12 my sisters used to dress me up as a girl and introduce me as ‘Claudia’! Twelve was a turning point as I moved to a mixed school and then I became cool and discovered hair gel.

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I’ll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I’m not trying to lose weight.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert’s understanding, but also approached art emotionally.

My father was very energetic; my mother was very energetic. He lived to a very old age, and so did my mother. I believe that I just have it from my father, from my parents. They had wonderful energy.

My grandma is probably the only person on this planet that I still remember their home number by heart

I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is. The same thing is true in the work that I do. It’s all about me feeling where people are. So that’s why I try to be really present, even when I’m on a rope line. I never take for granted my interactions with people. And it’s never black-and-white. I’m usually reading the crowd, reading the people that I’m with. I guess if this role has changed me, it’s improved my ability to do that. I’ve gotten better at sensing where people are at any given time.