Brandy

Brandy Norwood was made her fame in the late 1990s as a teen pop singer and star of the TV comedy Moesha. Discovered by Atlantic Records when she was a member of a youth singing group, Brandy released her self-titled debut album in 1994, when she was just 15 years old. Heavy rotation on MTV made hits out of "I Wanna Be Down" and "Best Friend," and she popped up on the soundtracks for the movies Batman Forever (1995), Waiting to Exhale (1995, directed by Forest Whitaker) and Set It Off (1996, with Queen Latifah). Between 1996 and 2001 Brandy was the star of the television sitcom Moesha, while maintaining a recording career and starring in productions such as the TV movie musical Cinderella (1997, with Whitney Houston) and the feature film I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998, with Jennifer Love Hewitt). Her second album, Never Say Never (1998) included the hit duet (with Monica) "The Boy Is Mine," which earned Brandy her only Grammy award (she has been nominated more than a dozen times). Her third album, Full Moon (2002) included the hit "What About Us?" and her fourth album, Afrodisiac (2004), received good reviews and was nominated for a Grammy as one of the year's best contemporary R&B releases.

Since Moesha ended, Brandy's personal life has made the news as often as her record releases and TV appearances. In early 2002 she announced she was pregnant by Robert Smith, explaining they had been married since the summer of 2001. During part of the MTV reality series Special Delivery, Brandy announced her divorce from Smith. Smith, however, revealed that he and Brandy had never been legally married. After a few years of motherhood, Brandy returned to the public eye in 2006 as a judge on the TV talent contest America's Got Talent (starring Regis Philbin). Later that year, on 30 December, Brandy caused a four-car accident on the freeway that resulted in the death of a 38 year-old woman, Awatef Aboudihaj. The crash is still being investigated.