Normani Felt Being In Fifth Harmony Was A ‘Prison Sentence’!

Normani is looking back on her time in a girl group.

Perezcious readers mostly will recall her journey into the music industry. In 2012, the singer competed on The X-Factor at 15. Although Normani wanted to be a solo act, the judges — Britney Spears, L.A. Reid, Demi Lovato, and Simon Cowell — didn’t think she was ready yet. However, they did believe she had the potential to make it in a girl group. Like One Direction in the UK version, the foursome had her join Camila Cabello, Lauren Jauregui, Ally Brooke, and Dinah Jane in a band that would go on to be called Fifth Harmony. They placed third in the singing competition series and went on to get a record deal under Reid’s label Epic Records via Syco Music.

The five women ultimately became one of the most successful girl groups during their time together, selling a whopping 33 million records! However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for them — especially Normani. At first, the 27-year-old didn’t mind being in 5H. But now she doesn’t look back on her experience in the group super fondly. In an interview with The Cut, Normani described her time with Fifth Harmony as “a blessing that also traumatized her” and “a prison sentence ordered and duly served.” Whoa…

The Wild Side artist explained she was grateful to be able to hide while in the group as she “didn’t want to be at the forefront.” But “it wasn’t until later” she “started feeling like a token.” In the summer of 2016, Normani began receiving death threats and horrific messages referring to her as “Normonkey,” as well as seeing racist images of her circulating online. What the f**k. Her mom Andrea Hamilton recalled to the outlet:

“I remember going on social media and seeing my daughter’s face Photoshopped on bodies of people being whipped.”

Absolutely horrible. And all this disgusting vitriol targeted at Normani — who was the only Black woman in the group — started because she casually described Camila as “quirky” and “cute” in an interview a few days before. Fans, who already sensed tension between the five girls at the time, believed her comments were a dig. And on top of everything, Camila’s super racist social media posts from the early days of the group resurfaced at this time. Jeez.

While all of this was going on, Fifth Harmony had been on tour. Instead of checking in on her amid these attacks, Normani said no one from Epic or Syco reached out to her — even when she feared for her own life. Instead, it was business as usual:

“We just continued to do shows, and I was fearing for my life. But they continued to put me out there on the stage. It was pretty much like, ‘The show goes on.’”

Ultimately, what she went through that summer fractured her relationship with the label, the journalists, the other members of Fifth Harmony, and even the fans. Normani said: