Former En Vogue singer and group founder Dawn Robinson shocked fans with a heartbreaking revelation about her living situation in a recent YouTube video.
On Tuesday (March 11), Robinson posted a nearly 20-minute video to her YouTube channel admitting she has spent nearly three years living in her car. The R&B star explained that her struggles began after staying with her parents in Las Vegas during the pandemic. However, what started as a temporary arrangement soon turned sour.
“You guys for the past three almost three years, I have been living in my car,” Robinson confessed. “I said it. Oh my God. It’s out and living in my car. Oh my gosh.”
Dawn Robinson known as a founding member of the group En Vogue reveals she’s been living in her car for the past 3 years. pic.twitter.com/CfqX16jAdM
— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) March 12, 2025
Robinson described the time she stayed with her parents as “wonderful until it wasn’t,” while also explaining how it forced her into her current situation.
“I love my mom, but she became very angry and a lot of her anger she was taking out on me,” she said. “I was her target all the time and I was like, ‘I can’t deal with this’, Like I respect her too much. Let me get out of here.”
With nowhere to go, Robinson found herself sleeping in her car for about a month before a lifeline seemed to appear. A co-manager based in Los Angeles offered to help, inviting her to move back to the city.
“He said, ‘You need to come back to LA,’” she recalled. “And he said that I could stay with him and so I was like, ‘OK.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t have a lot of room, but I’ll make room for you’.”
But things quickly went from bad to worse when she arrived, considering the manager, despite his promises, didn’t actually have space for her.
“So it turned into, OK, well, I’m going to put you in a hotel for the night’,” she revealed. “And that one night turned into eight months. Oh my God, you guys.”
During those eight months, Robinson tirelessly searched for an apartment, but her manager continually refused every option she found.
“Every apartment that I looked at, every single time I looked at a place, I would call him and I’m like, ‘OK, can you meet me here?’” she said. “And then he wouldn’t meet me there and so I would take video and send it to him and he’s like, ‘No. Oh my God, this neighborhood. I hate it.’”
Robinson, who felt she was being strung along, grew increasingly frustrated as she watched her manager spend thousands on her hotel instead of securing her stable housing.
“Financially, I know it’s got to be hard,” she said. “You’re paying your rent and you’re paying my hotel. His apartment was $1700 a month and then my hotel was over $3000, so every week I was like, ‘Oh my God, can you afford it? Are you OK?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I can’t but I’m getting it together.’”
Robinson went on to explain that she “got out of there” revealing that her last day in the hotel was in March 2022. From there, she says she landed in Malibu and has since been being financially supported by three people—one of whom she says is the mother one of her former partners or, as she calls her, her “forever mother-in-law.” Despite everything she’s gone through, Robinson says the decision to begin living in her car has left her feeling “free.” Since Robinson posted the video on her channel it has quickly attracted more than 8,000 views, in addition to an outpouring of fan support.
Watch the full YouTube video Robinson posted on her channel below.
