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Dawn Robinson, a founding member of the \u201990s R&B group En Vogue, said this week that she had been living in her car for roughly three years after several living arrangements fell through.<\/p>\n
In a nearly 20-minute video that was posted to her official YouTube channel on Tuesday<\/a>, Robinson said that she did not want anyone\u2019s pity and that she was comfortable with the decision she had made. Although she said she would rather have her own apartment, she put somewhat of a positive spin on her circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad that I made this choice because I needed to go through this fire,\u201d Robinson said in the video, adding that she was in the middle of a spiritual journey involving a period of isolation from family and friends. \u201cI\u2019m in the trenches of this right now and I\u2019m like, \u2018I wouldn\u2019t trade my experiences and what I\u2019ve gone through for the world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A representative for En Vogue, which is still active without Robinson, declined to comment beyond saying that the group had not been in contact with her in more than five years. Robinson could not immediately be reached for comment and did not say in her video where her vehicle is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Barbara Alexander, Robinson\u2019s mother, said by phone from her home in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon that she was first alerted to the video on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to watch because that\u2019s my daughter,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cI feel bad with her situation, but Dawn doesn\u2019t have to be in that situation, that\u2019s what she choose to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson said in her video that she had lived with her mother and stepfather for a few years in Las Vegas before relocating to Los Angeles with her manager at the time, saying that she and her mother had often butted heads. Alexander described similar struggles and that she was not sure where her daughter was now living.<\/p>\n \u201cI have not actually spoken to Dawn in almost three years,\u201d she said, adding that she planned to call her soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDawn does not have to be living in her car,\u201d she said, noting her musical talents. \u201cThat\u2019s just ridiculous. She doesn\u2019t have to be living like that. Dawn has got music that she could pass on to Taylor Swift. That\u2019s how great she is. So I just wish that she would get her life together and leave all her demons, or whatever she\u2019s fighting, and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexander said that she would like to reconcile with her daughter. \u201cIf she was to knock on my door right now, I would grab her, I would hug her, and I would not even talk about what is out there right now. I\u2019d move on past because it\u2019s done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n En Vogue was founded in the late 1980s with Robinson, Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones and climbed the charts in the 1990s with songs like \u201cHold On,\u201d \u201cFree Your Mind\u201d and \u201cGiving Him Something He Can Feel.\u201d A New York Times review<\/a> of one of their concerts in 1992 praised the members\u2019 vocal skills and said, \u201cThere\u2019s not a weak voice in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson left the group in 1997 but made reunion appearances in 2005 and 2009, according to Billboard<\/a>. Its current members \u2014 Ellis, Herron, Jones and Rhona Bennett \u2014 performed at the N.B.A. All-Star Game in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n Robinson, who was also in the music group Lucy Pearl with the singer-songwriter Raphael Saadiq, said friends had warned her not to share the details of her living circumstances. \u201cMy aim is to inspire,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd to let people know that you\u2019re capable of anything, no matter what the odds are against you.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson said that it was in March 2022, after she had lived with her mother and stepfather, that she took a different approach. She said that she decided to try living in her car after researching \u201cvan life,\u201d a trend that surged during the coronavirus pandemic<\/a> in which people permanently live in a vehicle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI loved what I was seeing,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cI just thought, \u2018I could do that, I can do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson said that over the years she had developed a careful routine that included caring for her car, covering her windows when necessary and not talking to certain people. She also has a membership at a gym where she showers. \u201cI\u2019m a funky diva, but I\u2019m not funky,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Toward the end of the video, Robinson said her career would bounce back and addressed concerns that she might be sharing the information for publicity.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many things that people have done for publicity stunts,\u201d she said. \u201cSaying that I\u2019m living in my car and actually not living in my car would be a stupid publicity stunt. But this is not publicity. I have all the footage from Vegas to L.A. to prove that.\u201d<\/p>\n Kitty Bennett contributed research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n