Sy’rai Smith, daughter of singer Brandy, has been showing off one of the great weight-loss transformations seen in recent years. And while one could assume the 19-year-old did it to achieve a certain look (and there’s nothing wrong with going after the aesthetic you want with hard work and exercise), that would be incorrect. It was actually to be able to live longer so she could achieve her goals.
“I had a lot of health issues when I was at the size that I was,” Smith told the ladies of The Real during a visit this week. “My mom was with me during everything. She saw me go through a lot. I just decided to really take my health seriously. So I changed my mindset, changed my mentality, and I knew that being in the body I was in, I knew my life wasn’t going to be as long.”
She added, “I just knew living my purpose, I want to be able to live in that body if I wanted to fulfill anything going forward in my life. So I just really, really took time. I really thought to myself: ‘I want to be there for my little sisters, my little brothers, I want to be there for my mom, my dad’ and I was like, ‘I need to change, like now.'”
While it’s unclear when Smith started this journey, even with the success she’s had, she admits that she still deals with some doubts about her body because of what she sees on social media.
“I started becoming a little more obsessed with the scale, with how I look and how my body was transforming. And it wasn’t easy to look at myself,” she said. “And then I grow up in an era where a lot of young women compare themselves to other girls on social media and I’m a little victim of that.”
“I get very jealous, I get very insecure when I look at other women. And I know my body has been through a lot and I always have to remind myself of that,” she added. “The scars that I have, the stretch marks that I have, everything that my body has been through it’s for a purpose, it’s for a reason…but I do feel a little pressure. People have eyes on me at all times. People have eyes on mom all the time. So I did feel pressure to kind of quickly do it or try and maneuver…’Let me not eat this for a week’ or let me kind of change up everything just to kind of form a little ‘Instagram body,’ but that’s not normal.”
As she’s navigated those pressures and her weight loss, she’s received a great deal of support from her famous mom. Despite growing up worried that she “embarrassed” Brandy, Smith says her mom always uplifted her, no matter her size.
“Seeing my mom dress a certain way or wear certain things…it was kind of difficult because it was like, ‘Why am I not that way? Why am I not that size? Why was I made the way I was made?’ Sometimes I would feel a little sad or I would feel like she was embarrassed of me,” Smith said. “These are all just insecurities in my head. She was never like that. She always was supportive. She always knew I was beautiful. She supported me whether I wanted to lose a lot of weight nor not. She always told me that I was beautiful.”
As for what the Queens actress thinks of her child’s transformation, she’s just glad to know that Smith is well — body and spirit.
“Nobody truly knows what she’s been through,” the “Almost Doesn’t Count” singer wrote on Instagram earlier this summer. “So blessed and overjoyed to see her healthy and happy.”