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Toni Braxton has opened up about her battle with lupus, revealing that she was initially told to hide her diagnosis if she wanted a successful career in music.
The “Un-Break My Heart” singer, 56, recalled feeling “ashamed” over having the autoimmune disease while simultaneously making a name for herself in the music world.
“I worked hard to hide it for the longest time,” Braxton said on “SHE MD” podcast Tuesday. “I was ashamed. Especially being a performer. So I would make light of it.”
Lupus is “a disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
“People get scared around sick celebrities,” Braxton explained. “And I couldn’t get insured. … You would not get work, because the second I [was] told I had it, I didn’t get work at first.”
“No one wanted to put me on a stage. ‘Well, suppose she collapsed on stage, and the insurance, how are we going to do that?’ And so I couldn’t, at first I did not [work],” she added.
The “He Wasn’t Man Enough” hitmaker said she went a whole decade without receiving an official diagnosis for her condition after experiencing various symptoms following the birth of her two sons Denim, 22, and Diezel, 21, whom she shares with ex-husband Keri Lewis.
“No one could figure it out,” Braxton said, adding that she “felt like a hypochondriac” at the time.
“Like I’m just telling people, ‘I don’t feel well,’ and no one’s listening,” she explained. “And it doesn’t have a look. Lupus doesn’t have a look to it — not to say that other things do, but we always try to fake that we’re feeling great or we don’t want to worry anyone. As mothers and women, we tend to do that anyway.”
“We never talk about mental health. It definitely affected it. I had chronic anxiety. … It got worse,” she said, stressing that “there’s nothing to be ashamed of, nothing.”
Braxton went public with her diagnosis in 2010 while accepting a Women in Achievement award.
“Today I’m going to talk about it because I’m a survivor and I’m here, and I don’t want to lose hope. Take a look — this is what lupus looks like,” she said onstage.
Braxton last year underwent a “traumatic” heart procedure after suffering a complication from lupus.