Brandy Says ExBoyfriend Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men &x27;Took Advantage&x27; of Her Due to Their Age Gap: &x27;The Shame Ends Here&x27; Staff AuthorTue, March 31, 2026 at 9:55 PM UTC 0 Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men and Brandy pose for photos backstage after his performance during the Stonecreek/Motown Records showcase at the Impact Music Convention at the Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida in April 1997.
Brandy Says Ex-Boyfriend Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men 'Took Advantage' of Her Due to Their Age Gap: 'The Shame Ends Here'
Staff AuthorTue, March 31, 2026 at 9:55 PM UTC
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Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men and Brandy pose for photos backstage after his performance during the Stonecreek/Motown Records showcase at the Impact Music Convention at the Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida in April 1997.Credit: Raymond Boyd/Getty -
Brandy opens up like never before in her new memoir Phases, out now
The R&B superstar shares that she dated Boyz II Men star Wanya Morris when she was a teen and he was in his early 20s
The relationship scarred her, she writes, and she now feels he "took advantage" of her youth and naïvety
Brandy is opening up for the first time about a relationship she says has haunted her.
In Phases, the R&B superstar's new memoir, she shares details of her late '90s relationship with Boyz II Men singer Wanya Morris that she says began when she was 16 and he was in his early 20s. The two collaborated on the hit song "Brokenhearted" in 1994 and she shares that their friendship quickly turned romantic.
"I was in over my head. Sneaking around with Wanya and lying to my parents had become a constant. They barely liked the idea of me dating at all, and telling them about us was out of question," Brandy, now 47, writes.
Brandy; Phases by BrandyCredit: Stewart Cook/Getty; Amazon
"But it wasn't just about upsetting — or disappointing — my parents," she continues. "Wanya and I understood, with diamond-cut clarity that public knowledge of our relationship would ignite scandal, potentially threatening everything we'd both worked for, so he and I opted for elaborate fiction: we would pretend patience and claim we were waiting until my eighteenth birthday before pursuing any romantic connection."
Brandy writes of losing her virginity to Morris, now 52. She goes on to share that as the relationship progressed, he became prone to comparing her to other hit R&B singers, namely Mariah Carey, his "One Sweet Day" duet partner. He was also increasingly hard to track down and she was required to page him prior to calling.
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"These are the things that with hindsight you realize are wildly obvious signs of something wrong," she writes, "Neon warning signs that I chose to ignore because I didn't know what the hell I was doing, or what he was doing with me. Just that I was in love — or what I believed was love."
Wanya MorrisCredit: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic
She says that the two split up after she discovered, and he admitted, he was cheating. For years she says that Morris has described their relationship as "the young ingénue having a schoolgirl crush and getting her heart broken," but that's not the case, she says. "I believe he took advantage."
"The shame ends here. The silence ends here," she adds of coming to terms with the feeling that she was manipulated into and throughout the relationship. "I was not a fast girl with a crush. I was not a dramatic teenager who couldn't handle rejection. I was not an unstable obsessive fan. I was a child. And he was an adult. And it's time the world understood the difference."
Brandy in Atlanta in February 2024Credit: Prince Williams/WireImage
Representatives for Morris did not immediately return PEOPLE's request for comment. Over the years the singer has spoken out about the relationship, including during a 2021 live social media post where he shared, "we were young, you're young and you fall in love." He added, "as time progressed we grew out of each other...she grew out of me and I grew out of her. I might have grown out of her a little bit faster."
Phases by Brandy from Hanover Square Press is available wherever books are sold.
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: March 31, 2026 at 06:45PM on Source: PRIME TIME
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