Toni Braxton: talks about men, sudden stardom and the undying rumor

Ebony, May, 1994 by Muriel L. Whetstone

If Toni Braxton were to place a single's ad, it would read something like this: Single Black female looking for a young single Black man. Will consider inquiries from witty conversationalists with charitable personalities. Must be capable of loving me like you love your mother. But wimpy, hen-pecked mamma's boys need not apply!

There are probably few men who would not flock to respond to the attractive 26-year-old singer who has enraptured scores of fans with her sensuously sad love songs. Yet, in this age of tabloid TV and scandal-producing headlines, Toni's rapid rise to stardom has exposed her to a rumor that, despite her insistence that "I love men, fine, Black men," simply refuses to die. America's enquiring minds want to know: Is Toni Braxton really gay?

The scuttlebutt snaking through the grapevine is that when Toni appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show, she somehow indicated that she preferred women rather than men. The stinging hurtful rumor, she says, "is absolutely false!"

And Davett Singletary, artist development director for LaFace Records, asserts that nothing happened on the show to get the rumor started, since on the two occasions Toni appeared, Arsenio did not interview her.

But like a ball and chain, this nasty innuendo has hung persistently around the young star's ankle. It has not, however, caused her to miss even a beat in her meteoric climb to the apex of America's music industry. That's because Toni, playing to the hilt her smoky, sultry sound, packaged in a seductively sexy stage persona, is on a Cinderella-fanstasy ride to the stars.

Whether she is singing of love's tenderness as she does on "You Mean The World To Me," or mourning the loss of a cherished friendship as in "Best Friend," Toni says what comes out, comes from the depths of her soul.

When executive producers Antonio (L.A.) Reid and Kenneth (Babyface) Edmonds asked what direction she wanted her debut album to take, her primary request was that its lyrics deal with the realistic side of love. "Not, |Harold, will you be home early tonight, dear?" she says in a sing-song voice during a recent rare day off. But, "|Where have you been? Why haven't you called me? I've been waiting all week long!'

"This album says that Toni Braxton is a young girl who's been through some of life," she says, the memory of some of it crossing he face. "[They were] hurtful experience that really tore me up. But at the same time, they made me a stronger woman .... I can sing about them and I can be sad about them but still give women hope that it's going to be alright."

Love, and the pain it can sometimes cause, is no stranger to Toni. She says the single, "Best Friend," which she co-wrote, is based on a true story. "I was breaking up with this guy and my best friend started dating him straight away," she explains. "It was like, |You've finished with him, so I'm having him for myself,'...and that hurt.

I consider myself a spokesperson for women all over America, all over the world because no matter what color you are, every woman has experienced what I'm singing about."

Toni's actively looking for her Mr. Right, but "I'm not a desperate 26-year-old trying to get a man," she says. "[And] I'm not looking for a husband. I am looking for a person that I can go out with on occasions."

In addition to preferring a man with polished teeth, an attractive smile and a chiseled body, Toni says she loves to be pampered and if a guy can give a pedicure, "We can definitely talk!"

Somewhere there's a Prince Charming waiting for this Cinderella. But for now, he'll have to cool his heels because his princess is having far too much fun bopping and boogying at the ball to waltz with him into the sunset.

Toni's Cinderella-fantasy, borne of raw talent and shaped by dogged determination, became a reality after her self-titled debut album mushroomed into a 3-million-plus chart-topper. And it has successfully set the novice songstress on a hit-making highway frequented only by the music world's most accomplished superstars.

"I always knew I wanted to be a singer and I always knew it was going to happen," she says of her phenomenal success. "I just never knew when and I never expected it to happen as it has."

The extraordinary way it has happened would leave any Cinderella's head spinning! Two American Music Awards for favorite new artist in both the soul-R&B and adult contemporary categories. A Grammy each for best new artist and best female R&B vocal performance for her first single, "Another Sad Love Song." And Soul Train Music Awards for best female R&B album and best female R&B for her lovelorn classic-in-the-making, "Breathe Again."

The album has left Toni's new legion of fans breathless and the music industry in awe. "It's hard to believe it's really happening to me," she says. "I just really feel blessed."

Born in Severn, Md., to the Rev. Michael and Evelyn Braxton, Toni has a solid Christian foundation. A middle-class couple, the Braxtons raised their eldest daughter, her brother and four sisters in the strictest traditions of the Apostolic faith they practiced until she turned 12. "It was a sin to even go to G-rated movies," she recalls, "because although they were carton, it was [considered] withcraft."