Fantasia is grateful her brother, Xavier Barrino, was in a car crash that almost cost him his life and left him severely injured. It’s because her brother, who’s learning how to walk again, needed a spiritual intervention, she said on the latest episode of ESSENCE’s Yes, Girl podcast.
“A lot of times you go through some things and you’re like, ‘God, how did I end up here?’ Or, ‘Why?’ And he’s like, ‘Well I had been trying to get your attention for about three months to a year. I’m just saying things. And you didn’t listen or see any of the signs. So I unfortunately I had to allow certain things to happen,’” Fantasia explained.
Xavier was critically injured in a motorcycle accident in Charlotte, North Carolina back in 2017. Last year, he stood up for the first time since the accident.
Fantasia added that her brother is now “doing good. He’s not walking yet, but he will be soon. He’s determined. He wants it.”
On some level, the singer is grateful for the accident for changing her brother’s outlook on life.
“If the accident wouldn’t [have] happen[ed], I believe my little brother probably would have killed himself,” she admitted. “He’s young. The generation we live in now, it seems that they’re a lot different from how we were raised. They’re kind of lost and they want microwaveable careers; everything really quickly. Nobody wants to put the work in.”
Fantasia held firm in her choice to support her brother, but not coddle him out of concern.
“I’m not going to give you anything. You’ve got to put the work in just like I did. When you put the work in, you cherish it more, you take care of it,” she explained of her tough love.
Fantasia hopes that this experience will allow her brother to touch others in an impactful way.
“I believe that when God sat him down, he showed him a lot and he came up a new man and he’ll have a new walk,” she said on the podcast. “I told him, ‘You’ll be the voice for the younger generation to say, Hey, get it together.’”
Listen to the full episode of Yes, Girl podcast below: