Fantasia Barrino

Fantasia Monique Barrino is the American idol winner of season 3. She is an R&B/Pop singer and has been nominated for 8 grammy awards. She also now is known for her own reality tv show called Fantasia For Real. Fantasia has done some acting too. She was in the Broadway musical The Color Purple. In 2004 after she was named American idol she came out with her first single "I believe".

Before she was named American Idol she was just Fantasia Monique Barrino. She grew up in High Point, North Carolina. Growing up she always knew how to sing really good. She was just 5 years old singing at her church. Also growing up she liked a lot of attention from boys. She would wear revealing clothes, like that are much tighter and shorter that usual which caused one boy to get the wrong idea of her and she ended up doing something that she was forced to do at the age of only 14. All the kids at school knew what had happened to her and she let them get to her. So she dropped out of school. Then at 17 years old Fantasia ended up getting pregnant by a guy a couple years older than her and later had her daughter Zion. The father wasn't in her daughter's life so Fantasia had to live the life of a single mother.

After listening to Brandy, Aerosmith, and Aretha Franklin she started noticing her love for music. Going on American Idol the judges really liked her from the beginning. Some people don't win competitions by much but she won by more than 1 million votes. Her first debut album sold many copies in just the first couple of months. Some of her hit songs are I Believe, Truth Is, Free Yourself, and When I See You. Her most recent hit song is Bittersweet.

During her career she had a lot of pressure built up inside of her which caused her to try to commit suicide. She attempted to kill herself by overdosing on pills. Her suicide attempt failed. At first she said it was an accident, but when interviewing her on Behind The Music she admitted that it was no accident.

Fantasia is my hero because even though she had a rough past she still managed to pull through. Being an American Idol winner has changed her life for the better, she can do what she loves to do, which is sing. All the mistakes in her past have made her who she is today.