Fantasia explains why she left "The Color Purple" on Broadway
"I couldn't get enough sleep and sometimes onstage, I could taste blood ... every now and then," she tells Sister 2 Sister magazine. "They (producers) would send me to the hospitals and they would say, 'Well, she's dehydrated; that's what's making her tired.' They would put IVs in me. But it just wasn't enough."
Eventually, Barrino sensed that something was seriously wrong and visited a top throat doctor in Los Angeles. With the use of a small camera, the physician discovered what he thought was a cyst. The singer recalls, "I went into surgery and he came out and told my mother it was a tumor."
Barrino is now healthy following surgery, but the entertainer says she is still "hurt" by some of the negative publicity that surrounded her missed shows. At the time, there were rumors that she had gotten pregnant.
"It really hurt my feelings. ... I told my manager, 'Please, somebody protect me,' because I've never missed a show. ... I like to perform," said Barrino. "I felt like, after I had my surgery, nobody knew about it. 'The Color Purple' didn't know about it, my record company didn't know about it, and I was very hurt by that. ... I wasn't receiving any flowers, any balloons."
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