*Anita Baker has revealed that she was nearly wrecked by a family secret, but has since been able to overcome it.
In a new interview with Essence, the songstress said she was given up for adoption soon after she was born, and her mother’s decision has made her question her worth and the purpose of her life.
“It started with the fact that my mother gave me up when I was a baby,” she told the outlet. “Not because she was a bad person or because she was some monster or something. She was just a child and could not care for me. It has taken me a long time to find peace within my own heart.”
According to JRank, Anita was 13-years-old when she was told that Mary Lewis, the woman she had always believed was her mother, was actually her foster parent. Baker was told the truth upon Lewis’ death. The publication also stated that after Lewis passed, a beautician named Lois Landry told Baker that she was not her older sister, but in fact her aunt, and that she was given away by her birth mother, to Mary.
Afterwards, Lois and her husband, Walter Landry, officially adopted Anita and raised her as their own. Anita now refers to Lois as her “earth Mother.”
“That child believed her mother abandoned her,” Baker said, “because there was something bad about her. Something terrible that made her unlovable. And until Walter [Baker’s then husband], that is how I felt about me—that I was not good enough. Not good, period.”
“It started with the fact that my mother gave me up when I was a baby,” she said, per JRank. “Not because she was a bad person or because she was some monster or something. She was just a child and could not care for me. It has taken me a long time to find peace within my own heart.”
That peace, however, came with more problems after her adopted mom grew ill.
“Every time I would leave to do music, my mother would go into the hospital,” Baker said. “And eventually I decided, you know what, I’m not leaving, because it’s just not worth it to me to leave her.
Believing she’d found the perfect solution, Baker said she built a studio in her home. “My producer would be flying in, and we’d be in the middle of something, and I would get a call from the hospital, and I’d have to go.”
Now, she said those feelings of pain and not being good enough are behind her.
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