neonlights said:

Excuses. Brandy was never that big of a public figure for a fake marriage to hurt her career. It's not the fake marriage because really no one cared. It's the fact that people lost interest and moved on to listen to other artists. The end.

This.

Nobody ever gave that much of a shit to begin with. She got over-exposed for things other than her music (Moesha, I Know What You Did 3 Summers Ago, America's Got Talent), and her music just wasn't up to snuff after the first couple of years.

I honestly had no idea that Brandy had had a baby or pretended to be married. I, and everyone else, was bored with ol' Flounder Eyes long before any of that happened.

[Edited 4/25/12 2:24am]

errant said:

I get the hyperbole for effect, but Brandy's music has been about as consistent as anyone over that time frame. There certainly wasn't a marked decline from Brandy and Never Say Never to Full Moon and Afrodisiac.

TROR said:

Her own stupid fault. Who the hell still rushes into a marriage (or lies about being in one) because they had a child? Brandy and her people were so arrogant and naive about her obviously-phony image that they took it back to 1956 with that shit, and it wasn't even necessary. No one cares about your out-of-wedlock baby, Brandy. People DO care about being lied to.

Exactly There was no need for her to lie about this.I seriously doubt that her fans would have turned against her just because she had a baby out of wedlock.

Black artists don't sell stories unless there's a huge scandal involved. You never see daily-tabloids of practically anybody. Beyonce & Jay-Z's wedding got minimal coverage, the baby hasn't been on any magazine, and the paparazzi usually leaves them alone. Jessica Simpson is more chat-worthy to the mainstream and she's on the C-List. Name anyone...they won't be recycled front-page news, again, unless it's negative.

Angelina getting an engagement ring already has more articles than Brandy's incident. But she was well out of the general public's conscious by then.

You wait untill she walks down the aisle with Brad. It's gonna be like William & Kate over here.

AlexdeParis said:

errant said:

This.

Nobody ever gave that much of a shit to begin with. She got over-exposed for things other than her music (Moesha, I Know What You Did 3 Summers Ago, America's Got Talent), and her music just wasn't up to snuff after the first couple of years.

I honestly had no idea that Brandy had had a baby or pretended to be married. I, and everyone else, was bored with ol' Flounder Eyes long before any of that happened.

I get the hyperbole for effect, but Brandy's music has been about as consistent as anyone over that time frame. There certainly wasn't a marked decline from Brandy and Never Say Never to Full Moon and Afrodisiac.

That may well be, but there was certainly a marked decline in the interest of the public.

It's cute that she's blaming the cover-up of her fake marraige and the pregnancy that came from it as the end of her career.

She ought to just be real and realize that she was one of those cute young girls who was probably never going to hold people's attention beyond the first few hits. There was just never THAT much interest in her to begin with beyond a couple of really good songs that launched her.

Smart of her to move on to other things very quickly (TV, movies), even if it did make her more of a star in other arenas.

She had a few hits and that's all she was ever going to have.

errant said:

AlexdeParis said:

errant said: I get the hyperbole for effect, but Brandy's music has been about as consistent as anyone over that time frame. There certainly wasn't a marked decline from Brandy and Never Say Never to Full Moon and Afrodisiac.

That may well be, but there was certainly a marked decline in the interest of the public.

It's cute that she's blaming the cover-up of her fake marraige and the pregnancy that came from it as the end of her career.

I'm not disagreeing with any of this. I'm disagreeing with your remark that "her music just wasn't up to snuff after the first couple of years." I still contend that the industry just changed and rap acts shoved many R&B and pop acts out of the mainstream.