Former En Vogue singer Dawn Robinson has revealed she has been living in her car for the past three years, with the star making the startling admission in a YouTube video posted on Tuesday.
In a near 20-minute clip, the Free Your Mind singer – who sold millions of records worldwide with the hit ’90s girl group – explained her transition to this unconventional lifestyle.
She explained that she first began living in her car after moving out of her parents’ home in Las Vegas in 2020 and also cited tensions with her mother as the primary reason for leaving.
“For the past three – almost three years, I have been living in my car. I said it. Oh my God. I love my mom, but she became very angry, and a lot of her anger she was taking out on me.
“I was her target all the time, and I was like, ‘I can’t deal with this. Like I respect her too much’,” before adding that she had initially spent a month sleeping in her car in Vegas.
Robinson was encouraged by her manager to return to Los Angeles, a city she “loved”, with the plan being to stay with him until she found some sort of stability.
The star rose to fame in the 90s pop band En Vogue
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However, she recalled that when she reached her manager’s place, he didn’t “actually have room for me”, and she was forced to think of Plan B quickly.
She ended up staying in a hotel paid for by her manager for eight months, and, during this time, Robinson began researching “car life” online and was intrigued by what she discovered.
“There’s a whole community of people who live in their cars. loved what I was seeing,” which then prompted Robinson to leave hotel life behind in March 2022 and take her car to Malibu.
“That first night was scary,” she admitted, but she quickly adapted to the unique living situation and found her flow in her new way of living.
“As I got to know what to do in my car and how to do it, like how to cover my windows… you don’t talk to certain people,” she explained.
Robinson uses her gym membership to facilitate showers and continues to emphasise the importance of safety precautions, particularly as a woman and celebrity.
“You’re careful of telling people that you’re alone,” she said.
Despite her circumstances, Robinson expressed contentment with her lifestyle choice and said: “I felt free. That was a sense of freedom that I had. I felt like I was on a camping trip. I just felt like it was the right thing to do. I didn’t regret it.”
The singer emphasised she isn’t seeking sympathy from fans and clarified: “This is not like, oh my God, poor Dawn — she’s living in her car, and it’s terrible.
“I’m learning about who I am, I’m learning myself as a person, as a woman.”
Despite leaving the group in 2008, she is still in contact with her band members
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Robinson was a founding member of En Vogue, which formed in 1989 and sold 20 million records worldwide.
She left the group in 1997 and briefly returned in 2002 before departing again in 2008 to pursue a solo career – though in a 2020 interview with You Know I Got Soul, she claimed “they kicked me out”.
The R&B group was known for hits like “Free Your Mind”, “Hold On” and “Don’t Go”, topping the Billboard charts at the height of their fame.