Previously: ‘Brandy Says Car Crash Changed Life Forever’

Singer Brandy opens up for the first time to Us Weekly about her fake marriage and the “traumatic” car accident that left one person dead.

In 2002, Brandy Norwood announced she’d secretly wed music producer Robert Smith the year before – just four months before giving birth to their baby, Sy’rai, when just 22 years old. The pair even acted as husband and wife on MTV series Brandy: A Special Delivery, which documented their daughter’s birth.

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But after calling it quits in 2003, Smith told a radio station the marriage never happened.

“I lied because of the fear of what people would think and the pressure to be a good role model,” Norwood, 29, reveals to Us Weekly in her first interview on the topic.

“Our relationship was very real, we just weren’t legally married,” she adds.

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Norwood also admits she kept her daughter in the dark about the 2006 multicar collision she was involved in that left a 38-year-old woman dead.

“It was a very tough time, and I still have never talked about it with Sy’rai,” she says. “I had to be a mother and stay strong for her. I’d cry when she’d go to sleep so she wouldn’t see me like that – I had a responsibility to her.”

Though Norwood wasn’t arrested (there was no evidence of drugs or alcohol in her system) and was never charged, a $50 million lawsuit by the victim’s family looms.

But the singer (her next album, Human, hits stores Dec. 9) is moving forward from the past. Watch outtakes from the exclusive Us Weekly photo shoot below.

“I think this is my year because I’ve decided that I’m going to go with the flow in my life,” Norwood tells Us. “The purpose of my life is music. it’s my responsibility to give the fans something they’ve been waiting for, something they deserve.”

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SOURCE: USWeekly.com