Unbreak My Heart: A Memoir
Read Unbreak My Heart: A Memoir Online
Authors: Toni Braxton
To Denim and Diezel—the two gifts who will forever make my heart whole
CHAPTER
2
Country Life in the Suburbs
CHAPTER
5
Levi’s and Puppy Love
CHAPTER
9
The
Boomerang
Soundtrack
CHAPTER
12
Headlines and Heartache
CHAPTER
14
“Life Is Not a Fairy Tale”
CHAPTER
15
Leaks, Lies, and Revelations
CHAPTER
18
The Vegas Showstopper
CHAPTER
19
“How Did I Get Here Again?”
CHAPTER
20
Braxton Family Values
I
’m at a crossroads. More than four decades ago, I set out on a journey as a little girl with a huge dream—one that has carried me all the way from a dirt-filled plot in Severn, Maryland, to the stage of the Grammys and beyond. In one way, it’s a phenomenal gift to have your wildest dream actually come true. But in another way, when that happens, it can leave you with a profound sense of uncertainty about what to do next. That’s the juncture at which I stand—right in the middle of creating a road map of what my life could look like tomorrow. Next year. In a decade. Forever.
My dream is as much born of passion as it is of deep reflection—that is the privilege of carving out a new path in adulthood, during life’s second act. This book is the sum total of that reflection. On every page, in every sentence, with every anecdote I recount, I am daring to examine both the steps and missteps that have led me to this moment. But I’m not simply looking back as some kind of emotional exercise—for me, the point is to find my way to the next best place.
Someone wise once said that pain is information—it’s our bodies’ way of telling us, “Pay attention—something isn’t working here.” So especially as I ponder the most distressing moments of my journey—those times when life has become burdensome enough to take me to the brink—I’m looking ahead with that ultimate hope. And what is that hope? That peering back at my past heartbreaks will ultimately lead to healing. That is the only real point in reflecting on any experience—to find a purpose in it that leads you toward wholeness.
Nothing about my story and yours may seem to resemble each other at first glance. And yes, it’s true—my mountaintop moments and my lowest points really are unique to me. Only I can tell you what it’s like to live through the combination of experiences that has filled my years. But from another perspective, my path is also very much like the one you’ve traveled. You may not have grown up as the first-born of six in a town few people have even heard of. You may not have been diagnosed with lupus, cared for a son with autism, or cried your way through two humiliating bankruptcies and an agonizing divorce. But like every other person who has ever lived, you know what it means to ache. To love. To laugh. To regret. Our circumstances may be different—but the emotions that come with being human are what connect us all.
The lessons of my journey are plentiful—and here is one. I’ve realized just how much of myself I’ve suppressed. I’ve sacrificed a lot of who I am to make the people around me happy. No longer. I’ve entrusted people who didn’t have my best interest at heart. That chapter is now permanently closed. I don’t know exactly what the coming years will bring, but I do know this: I will never again hand over my power to another human being. To do so is to hand over life itself—and at long last, I’m getting mine back.
You may know me best by the songs I’ve shared with the world. “Breathe Again.” “Seven Whole Days.” “Un-break My Heart.” To know my creations is to indeed know one part of who I am. But behind every lyric, behind each of those melodies and countless others, there lies a story that I’ve never been brave enough to tell. In this moment—standing at this crossroads—I have at last found the courage.
Losing My Breath
T
he happiest day of my career arrived one February morning in 1991. Nothing could have prepared me for how that day would end.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I immediately recognized the voice on the phone as that of Greg, my then-manager.
“Not much,” I lied, since I’d been pacing the carpeted floor of the town house I shared with a roommate in Laurel, Maryland. At the time, I was a student at Bowie State University, which is now the University of Maryland at Bowie. “What’s up?” I tightened my grip on the receiver and pressed it to my right ear. Even before he could answer, I somehow knew my life was about to shift. The only surprise would be how.
Since years before that phone call, I’d always dreamed I’d be a famous singer. My mother, Evelyn—who once turned down a music scholarship so she could marry my father, Michael—filled our Maryland home with music. “Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho and the walls came tumblin’ down,” Mommy would belt out in an operatic style when I was just a toddler. With so much music in the air, I and my five younger siblings—Mikey, Traci, Towanda, Trina, and Tamar—learned to harmonize practically before we learned to speak. And since we spent nearly as much time in church as we did at home (my father eventually became a pastor), we were surrounded by the rich and soulful tunes my parents passed on to us. Mommy eventually recognized our potential and turned my sisters and me into the Braxtons, a quintet-style singing group. That was just the beginning.
On weekends and after school under Mommy’s strict guidance, the five of us rehearsed for hours in churches around town. Each time we performed—usually right after my father had delivered a riveting sermon to a packed house—we heard a familiar refrain: “Them Braxton girls sure can sing!” All that practicing eventually paid off: In 1989, we signed a deal with Arista Records, and a year later, we put out our first single, “Good Life.” The song wasn’t exactly a hit (it reached number 79 on the
Billboard
Hot Black Singles chart), but we were still over the moon. Not so for Arista.
Though Clive Davis and the other record execs recognized that we had talent, no one quite knew how to package a group of squeaky-clean sisters who ranged from a twenty-three-year-old with a contralto voice (me) all the way down to a thirteen-year-old who still wore braces (Tamar). So after our lukewarm debut, Clive handed us off to a songwriting and production duo that had just formed a label under Arista. That’s right: Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and Antonio “L.A.” Reid invited us to fly to Atlanta and put on a showcase audition. We were elated.
How exactly do you prepare for such a make-or-break moment? My sisters and I did it by practicing like crazy. Every day for a month, I drove from my place in Laurel to my parents’ home in Severn so we could rehearse. I put together a medley that included harmonies from the Carpenters’ song “Close to You”; our first single, “Good Life”; and Janet Jackson’s hit “Love Will Never Do (Without You).” Throughout the performance, each one of us had a solo—mine was “God Is,” a gospel song. We sang a cappella for some of the pieces and I played the keyboard for others. My solo was to be the final one of the showcase.
In between our marathon rehearsals, I shopped for our stage outfits—as the eldest, I was in charge of that. So I drove over to Lerner’s (the store that carried plenty of extra-smalls!) and picked out black stirrup pants and leggings for the girls and a pair of keyhole earrings for each of us. Traci got the cutest outfit: a black one-piece catsuit along with a matching black jacket that had gold trim on it—very Salt-n-Pepa. As the shorty in the group (I was barely five foot one), I had to find some way to stand out. That’s why I chose a special outfit for myself: white biker shorts with lace trim, a belt with a silver buckle, a white jacket with long sleeves, and suede boots that I wore scrunched down—very 1980s Madonna. Mommy and Dad also bought each of us a black leather Kool Moe Dee–ish trench coat. A couple days later, we flew off from our home in Maryland and toward the kind of opportunity you only get once.
The night before the audition, my sisters and I; our parents; our manager, Greg; and Vernon Slaughter, then vice president of LaFace Records, spread out across six rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn on Peachtree Street. When the bellhop took our suitcases, I offered him a tip. Though the continental breakfast and coffee were free, I also proudly left a few crumpled dollar bills for the waiter. I felt so grown-up—like a star on an episode of
Dynasty
.
The following morning, a driver picked us up from the hotel in a white, extra-long stretch limo and dropped us off at an empty, dimly lit club on Piedmont Road. We arrived at exactly two
P.M.
And we waited. And we sweated. And we squirmed. When L.A. and Kenny finally strode in around two forty-five, each of us stood up, shyly greeted the two of them, and filed onto the stage. We then took our places and launched right into our opening song, “Good Life.” The lights were so bright that I could hardly see their faces—which is probably good because the butterflies were already swarming in my stomach.
Yet our jitters didn’t stop us from delivering a great show. All those years of church performances kicked in, and we nailed every one of the songs. By the time I took the keyboard for my solo, my anxiousness had given way to confidence. “She can really play,” Kenny leaned over and said to L.A., who may have thought I was faking it during the other numbers; by the way I was holding my hands, Kenny could tell I was a real pianist.
After our audition, L.A. and Kenny walked up to the stage and chatted with us. “Anybody else here play an instrument?” asked L.A.
“Traci plays the drums,” I blurted out.
“She plays the drums?” he said.
I suddenly remembered that L.A. had been a star drummer in the Deele, an R&B band. My throat tightened. “Well, she kinda plays the church drums,” I explained.
“Oh, okay,” he said—but then he didn’t ask her to show him. Years later, I’d wonder whether I’d robbed Traci of her big moment by minimizing her drum skills.
“We were impressed with you guys,” L.A. finally said.
“You were great,” Kenny added.
Really?
I thought.
Could that be true?
A moment later, we walked off the stage, put on our matching trenches, and waited for nearly an hour while Greg and our parents talked with L.A. and Kenny. On the limo ride back to the hotel, Greg gave us a reason to feel hopeful. “They really liked you guys!” he said. “I think they’re going to sign you.” Whatever happened, I knew we’d given our best.
Back in Maryland, we told every person we knew about our audition. “What was Babyface like?” a friend asked me.