Back from the brink and now making the promotional rounds, Fantasia Barrino took time today to thank a very special nurse at the hospital where she was admitted after her suicide attempt two weeks ago.
The American Idol winner stopped by Good Morning America, where she performed songs off her new album, Back to Me, and opened up to Robin Roberts about her past struggles and what—and who—exactly, saved her from a near-fatal OD.
"I was in the hospital and they gave me a different name. Nobody asked me anything about the press, they talked to me about my nails and hair. A nurse, Melanie, she would come in and make me walk around. She brought me Sister 2 Sister magazine, and I was in there. She told me 'You gotta get outta here and you gotta go back to work.' And for me there are people that love me and want to see me go back to work. There's no perfect person."
She cried as she continued: "They didn't treat me like Fantasia, they treated me like Tasia."
A day after revealing that she "just wanted out" the 26-year-old says it was the pressure of the past six years that led to her breaking point and that she's now ready to work again.
"Carrying six years of so much, I always take a licking and keep on ticking. Everyone thinks I'm so strong, it became so heavy for me. I wanted to be away from the noise. I just began to get tired of taking so many licks. The foreclosure, so many things I had to deal with, people just see the glitz and the glamour."
Fantasia also credits a new life coach with helping her get back to work.
"He's been teaching me things. At first I wasn't ready to come back. There's hurt, there's pain, there's trust issues, there's being lonely—all these things people don't get to see. I think I'm gonna show both."