"I was fearing for my life" — Normani compares her time in Fifth Harmony to a prison sentence

In a candid and revealing interview, Normani, a former member of the popular girl group Fifth Harmony, made statements about her experiences with the band. Comparing it to a prison sentence, she has shed light on the challenges she faced and the toll it took on her mental health.

On Tuesday, April 30, 2024, speaking with The Cut, Normani spoke about the difficulties she faced while being part of Fifth Harmony and suggested that she felt a threat to her survival —

"We just continued to do shows, and I was fearing for my life," she said.

The statement reflects the time when the Motivation artist's face was mocked and photoshopped rudely to the extent that she received death threats. However, the label and management urged the artist to continue performing.

Normani Kordei Hamilton is an American singer who rose to prominence as a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, which was one of the best-selling groups of all time. She left the group in 2018.

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Normani's revelations about Fifth Harmony

The singer, known for her powerhouse vocals and captivating performances, opened up about the emotional toll of being in the spotlight from a young age. She started her career at 13, and by the time Normani was 16, she joined Fifth Harmony in 2012.

Fifth Harmony, composed of five female vocalists, became the most commercially successful girl group. The band sold 33 million records, and despite the success, the American singer suggested that her time in the group was akin to serving a prison sentence.

The singer told The Cut that one morning in 2016, she woke up and saw images of herself surfing on the internet with her face photoshopped on a gorilla's body and suggested that strangers called her "Normonkey," —

"I remember going on social media and seeing my daughter's face Photoshopped on bodies of people being whipped," her mother added.

That year, the Dancing With A Stranger vocalist made seemingly innocuous comments in her interview about Camila Cabello, her bandmate, being "quirky" and "cute." However, the netizens took it as a dig at Cabello, assuming the tensions between the members of Fifth Harmony.

Later, the social media team of Cabello posted racist posts from the early days of the group. As per The Cut, in 2020, the artist expressed the incident, which she called "devastating" —

"It was devastating that this came from a place that was supposed to be a safe haven and a sisterhood."

The publication further revealed that the time Normani faced death threats while the band was on tour, nobody comforted her. The Wild Side vocalist revealed that the labels put her on the stage despite one fan who threatened to kill her, and who was ejected from the show —

"The show goes on," she said.

One year later, the four group members told the LA Times that they felt like puppets, and the label burdened and controlled them. The statement came after Camila Cabello, who left the group in 2016.

Normani and her mother, Andrea, remembered the time when people in Meet and Greet used to pass by the Motivation singer, completely ignoring her existence.

In 2018, she, along with Jane, Jauregui, and Brooke, suggested that the members will have solo endeavors thereafter.

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Normani solo album Dopamine launching this June

In 2018, after leaving the group, the artist tweeted, "I have my album title y'all." The singer told The Cut since then, she has been working on her project, Dopamine, which reflects her difficult years

She announced the release of the album on February 21, 2024, via her Instagram handle, which she captioned —

"cryingg typing this rn. DOPAMINE THE ALBUM," she captioned

Upon asking what took it too long to release the album, the artist suggested that she had at least revised Dopamine four or five times. Normani said she had added a hint of southern hip-hop and smooth R&B.

The album will be released on June 14, 2024.