Much like LeAnn Rimes, the attention Fantasia Barrino has received from being publicly called out for homewrecking has been the best thing to ever happen to her career. Barely anyone was paying attention to Fantasia until her married lover’s wife went public. Fantasia then went through a rapid downward spiral, and overdosed on aspirin and sleeping pills, which then lead to a hospitalization in North Carolina. Over the past two weeks, we’ve gotten various public statements from Fantasia’s God-tastic manager, whose messaging seemed on the “Praise Jesus for forgiving Fantasia’s homewrecking” side. We also got a public statement from Antwaun Cook, Fantasia’s lover, who basically said that we shouldn’t blame Fantasia for anything. Fine.

But now Fantasia is speaking out – and playing the victim. You see, Fantasia says her suicide attempt was for real, and that she was facing so much drama, she just wanted to end it all (and film it for her reality show, of course):

Two weeks after being hospitalized for overdosing on aspirin and a sleep aid, singer Fantasia Barrino says it was no accident. She wanted to die.

“I didn’t have any fight in me. I didn’t care about anything. I just wanted out,” the American Idol winner, 26, tells VH1 in a new Behind the Music interview, airing 9 p.m. ET/PT Tuesday, the same day her new album, Back to Me, is released. “At that moment, I wanted out. I wanted it to be over with – all of it, all of that [expletive].”

She continues: “I just sat in the closet and looked at the mirror and took all the pills in the bottle. I wanted to go to sleep and just be at peace. I knew exactly what I was doing. You can’t accidentally take a whole bottle of pills.”

Barrino’s manager, Brian Dickens, recalls finding her lying on the floor in her room. “Her emotions were extremely low,” he says. “She’d been crying all day. Fantasia was just numb. Fantasia texted me, saying ‘I love you.’ I wrote back, ‘I love you more.’ Then it hit me.”

“I wrote, ‘You better not do anything or think about doing anything stupid.’ And I left it at that. About 10 minutes later, Fantasia texted me back, and she said, ‘Already did.’ I went into Fantasia’s room and saw her on the floor, and my heart just dropped.”

What made the successful singer, who’s preparing to release her third album, want to end her life? “I was tired of people doing me wrong, constantly, over and over again, dealing with my family – my father, dealing with men and their [expletive] – I was tired,” she says. “My head was hurting me. I was over it.”

Affair with Antwaun Cook
To complicate matters even more, Barrino is now being threatened with a lawsuit by Paula Cook, the wife of Antwaun Cook, with whom Fantasia had been having an affair.

“When I met him, he was separated … wasn’t living in his home. He didn’t want to be back with his wife – that is what I was told,” Barrino says. “I remember waking up in the hospital [and thinking], ‘It didn’t work, I’m still here in this hellhole. Still here with all this drama going on.’ ”

Ultimately, the singer says the saving grace was her nurse. “My nurse Melanie was a blessing into my life because she didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear,” she says. “She told me what I needed to hear. And she looked at me and said, ‘You gotta get up, and you’ve gotta get out of here, ’cause you haven’t fulfilled your destiny.’ ”

“I realized how people end up in the grave. Because that one moment [snaps her fingers] of just breaking or feeling like I can’t, I can’t go on, it’s too heavy. That was somewhere I don’t ever want to go again.”

[From People]

Here’s the thing – I’ll pretty much buy that the Cook marriage was probably a lot more complicated than “we’re together” and “we’re not together”. And I do think that most of the blame for the general “homewrecking” situation should fall to Anwaun Cook, who sounds like he was creating different cover stories for his wife and his mistress. But Paula Cook claimed that Fantasia called her and told her (Paula) to stay away from Antwaun. That alone makes me think that Fantasia knew that the situation was more complicated than Antwaun’s story. Of course, I also think Fantasia’s suicide attempt and subsequent statements and interviews have all been about generating sympathy and trying to make herself into the victim. And I think she’s a selfish bitch, honestly.

Header: Fantasia on June 8, 2009. Credit: WENN.