9 hours Ago By Christine Samra
(KTLA) — A shocking admission from a founding member of the popular '90s R&B girl group En Vogue. In a new post online titled "Your New Life is Scary," Dawn Robinson revealed she's been living in her car for almost three years."I said it.
Oh, my God, it's out. I've been living in my car. Oh, my gosh," she said after saying it out loud and letting out a loud scream.
Trader Joe’s recalls 61K sparkling water bottlesShe explained that in 2020 she was living with her parents in Las Vegas."That was wonderful until it wasn't," she said. "I love my mom, but she became very angry, and a lot of her anger she was taking out on me.
And I was her target all the time, and I was like, 'I can't deal with this. Like I respect her too much.' I didn't understand it.
I still don't. And it hurt me, so I was just trying to figure it out, but I couldn't."From there she says was living in her car for about a month, until her former manager who was based in Los Angeles convinced her to move there.
He said she could stay with him, but when she arrived he didn't have enough space for her. He then paid for her to stay in a hotel, which was initially just for a night but ended up being the case for eight months.En Vogue, from left, Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron and Dawn Robinson pose before performing at the Essence Music Festival at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, July 5, 2009.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)Robinson says she looked into staying at an apartment instead as that would be cheaper for her manager, but he didn't agree to anything she saw. She wasn't sure if he could continue to pay for her hotel stay as he was paying his own rent at the same time.'He was paying about $1,700 a month and my hotel was over $3,000.
Way too much and no. I'm not doing this!" she exclaimed. "I was always stressed every week because he would pay for the hotel weekly and so, every week I'd be like 'Omg my God are you okay? Can you afford it?' he'd be like 'No I can't, but I'm getting it together.
'"John Carpenter announces LA residency, 1-night-only NYC showNot sure what to do, she decided to take up "car life" following a conversation with her assistant. "I told my assistant one day, 'I have been researching car life. There's a whole community of people that live in their cars, and a whole community of people that live in their RVs, and a whole community of people that live in vans, van life, car life, RV life, and I loved what I was seeing," she said.
"I just thought, 'Wow, these people. I could do that, I could do this, I think. And I ended up in my car, and it's been, like I said, three years.
"She left the hotel on March 9, 2022 and headed to Malibu. She said she "felt free" and that it was like being on a "camping trip.""That first night was scary, but then, as I got to know what to do in my car and how to do it, like, how to cover my windows and, you know, you don't talk to certain people.
You're careful of telling people that you're alone, as a woman especially, and I'm a celebrity," Robinson said. "I don't just divulge that to people. If you don't know who I am, I'm not telling you that part.
"During this chapter, she doesn't want people to feel sorry for her. "This is not like, 'Oh, my God! Poor Dawn, she's living in her car, and it's terrible. Oh, woe is me.
' It's not that. It's not. Like I said, I'm learning about who I am.
I'm learning myself as a person, as a woman," she continued. "If you would have said to me while I was En Vogue, 'You're going to be living in your car one day,' I'd be like, 'Huh? No, I'm always going to have an apartment. I can't live in my car.
How can I do that?' We say that we can't do certain things until we know we're capable."Formed in Oakland, California in 1989, with Robinson alongside Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones. En Vogue became popular with hits "Hold On," "Don't Let Go," "Free Your Mind" and more.
They went on to sell 20 million records.Suge Knight blasts Snoop Dogg in jailhouse interviewRobinson left the group in 1997 and Jones left in 2001. The duo returned to the group for their 20th anniversary in 2009 and left again right after.
En Vogue recently performed at the 2025 NBA All-Star game in San Francisco but without Robinson. Jones rejoined the group for the show."Sometimes in life, we end up in situations that we weren’t expecting," she wrote in the caption of the YouTube video.
"There’s something we need to learn or teach but we’re too afraid to push ourselves out of our comfort zones to do it so the universe does it for us! During this growth period, we either learn to trust ourselves or give in to fear and fail. I took a risk and jumped head first into car life and WOW, what a crazy, fun, sometimes scary ride it’s been lol! For me, failure is NOT an option. Being vulnerable sucks.
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