When Keyshia Cole was 13-years-old, she began hanging out in the Bay Area music scene with artists such as Tupac Shakur and MC Hammer. Music became an outlet for her to express her creativity, but if it weren’t from a mysterious gift she received at the age of 20, she wouldn’t be where she is today.
Here’s how Keyshia Cole’s life went from tragic to triumphant.
A dysfunctional childhood
Before selling millions of records, and long before she appeared on reality shows, such as The Way It Is and Love & Hip Hop Hollywood, Keyshia Cole grew up in a situation that was far from glamorous. Her biological mother, Frankie Lons, had six children by six different men, and Keyshia had no idea who her dad was for most of her life.
When Frankie was unable to care for Keyshia because of her battle with addiction, she was placed into foster care. Eventually, a woman named Yvonne Cole, who was a close friend of the family, adopted Keyshia when she was 2-years-old and raised her as her own.
To this day, Keyshia still has tension with her biological family members. In 2019, she revealed her mom had relapsed again, and she and her sister, Neffe, also exchanged words on social media. They’ve had a very rocky relationship ever since Frankie and Neffe agreed to film a spin-off reality show for BET, and things got even worse when Neffe wrote the 2012 book Price I Paid, which included some of the disagreements she and Keyshia had in the past.
A high school drop-out
She attended Fremont High School in the Bay Area, but she didn’t graduate. And once she got a taste of success, she put her education on the backburner. It wasn’t until after she gave birth to her son, Daniel Jr., that she decided it was time to make her education a priority. In a 2015 tweet, she revealed that she was working on obtaining her GED.
A mysterious gift
At the age of 20, Keyshia was in a horrible relationship with a man who was unfaithful. She told the East Bay Times that he had cheated on her, quote, “a million times.” After the first time, she decided to stay with him, but after he kept stepping out on her over and over again, she knew it was time for a change.
Living in poverty and without a high school education meant it wasn’t easy for her to start a new life on her own. But one day, she checked the mail and found a check for fourteen thousand dollars. Keyshia had no idea where the money came from, but it had her name on it. She assumed it had something to do with the government owing her money over the years for when she lived in foster care, or maybe it had something to do with her adoption. She didn’t really care, all she knew was that it was just what she needed to get out of her bad situation.
She spent seven thousand dollars to buy a car, packed her things, and left Oakland behind. She drove straight to Los Angeles and headed right into more trouble.
Legal issues
Los Angeles is a great place to live if you have dreams of making it big in the entertainment industry, but some people move there and get sucked into the fast-paced lifestyle. Even though Keyshia was determined to become a star, her life took a turn in 2002 when she got locked up for driving under the influence.
According to TMZ, she was placed on probation and was required to attend an alcohol education course, which she completed. But her lawyer forgot to inform the court that Keyshia had completed the required course. Because of her lawyer’s mistake, she was unknowingly on probation for thirteen years, and she didn’t even realize it until a judge put a warrant out for her in 2015 after she got into an altercation at Birdman’s house, but we’ll get into that in a bit.
Thankfully, her lawyer stepped in and finally cleared things up.
Musical success
Keyshia lived in Los Angeles for just a few years when all of her hard work finally paid off. She released her debut album The Way It Is in 2005, and it went platinum just eight months later. With success came Grammy nominations, sold-out concerts, a lot of attention from men, and many more horrible relationships…
Bad relationships
Keyshia began dating former basketball player Daniel Gibson, and the couple had a son together in 2010. In 2011, they got married, but it didn’t last long after Daniel admitted he had cheated on Keyshia during their marriage.
She filed for divorce in 2014, and that same year, she began secretly dating Birdman of Cash Money Records. She allegedly went to his West Los Angeles condo in the middle of the night and found a woman named Sabrina Mercadel in his home. Keyshia reportedly punched the woman in the face, yanked her hair and clawed her face and mouth with her nails, according to TMZ. She got locked up over the incident, and the woman took her to court in 2017, seeking $4 million dollars in damages. Keyshia skipped out on the court date, and the woman was awarded a default judgment of just over one hundred thousand dollars.
That wouldn’t be the last time one of Keyshia’s relationships took a messy turn. The same year she was ordered to pay the default judgment, she reportedly had a fling with Bow Wow. After their alleged romance went sour, the rapper accused her of egging an expensive vehicle parked outside of his home, but Keyshia denied any wrongdoing.
Finding the missing piece of the puzzle
For the majority of her life, Keyshia had no idea who her biological father was. At one point, her mom convinced her that her dad was an Italian man named Sal, so Keyshia began telling people she was biracial, which some of her fans weren’t pleased with.
In 2016, a boxing coach named Virgil Hunter was listening to the radio and a Keyshia Cole song came on. He began to wonder if maybe he was Keyshia’s dad because he had a fling with her mom back in the ‘80s. After taking a paternity test, he found out he was the father, and Keyshia took to her social media account to express how happy she was to finally find out the truth after 35 years.
A new chapter
Even though she filed for divorce in 2014, as of May 2019, Keyshia was still legally married to Daniel Gibson. She’s ready to end things once and for all, but it’s Daniel who’s reportedly making things difficult. The singer took to social media to reveal that her estranged husband was requesting spousal support and full custody of their son, and that’s why their divorce had been stalled.
Even though she’s still legally married, Keyshia has moved on with her life and announced in April 2019 that she’s expecting a baby with a man she’s so in love with, her boyfriend, Niko Khalé.
She spent the majority of her life as the poster child of how the ‘80s drug epidemic ruined so many black families. But at this point, Keyshia is more than a survivor. She’s a fighter, a businesswoman, a wonderful mom, and a success story that deserves some recognition.
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