From the top of the charts and a Grammy award to living in her car, former En Vogue singer Dawn Robinson shared some startling news with her fans.
She said in a recent YouTube video that she’s been living in her car for almost three years.
Robinson joined En Vogue group when it started in 1989 until 2011.
She along with Cindy Herron, Terry Ellis and Maxine Jones performed in the group had several hits including “My Lovin' (You’re Never Gonna Get It),” “Free Your Mind,” and “Don’t Let Go (Love).”
The Los Angeles Times called the group in 1992 “a funky reincarnation of the Supremes.”
When Robinson left En Vogue, they became a trio. She came back for a tour in 2005 but left along with Jones after a second reunion in 2009.
She moved in with her parents in Las Vegas but her relationship with her mother soured in 2020 and she moved to Los Angeles.
“That was wonderful until it wasn’t,” Robinson said. “I love my mom, but she became very angry, and a lot of her anger she was taken 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.”
She lived in her car temporarily at that point, until an offer to move in to her co-manager’s place.
But those plans fell through. Robinson then moved into a hotel that the co-manager paid for when he wouldn’t approve of an apartment for her.
“Sometimes I think people want to trap you and keep you in a situation where you’re vulnerable and depending on them, and I wasn’t the one,” Robinson said. “So yeah, I got out of there.”
But her move into her car was intentional. Robinson researched “car life” and got a gym membership so she could shower.
“That first night was scary,” she said in the video. “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 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 — I don’t just divulge that to people. If you don’t know who I am, I’m not telling you that part.”
She is posting videos to YouTube to pull back the curtain and is making a documentary about it.
Ellis, Herron and Rhona Bennett still appear as En Vogue, and along with Jones performed “Free Your Mind” during the 2025 NBA All-Star Game halftime.
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