Fantasia's Life 'Not A Fairy Tale'

In her Book, 'Idol' Champ Reveals How She Overcame Troubled Past

(CBS)  With her dance moves and sensational voice, Fantasia Barrino sang her way into the hearts of fans across the country. Since her victory on "American Idol," she has had several hits such as "Truth Is" from her first platinum album "Free Yourself."

Now, Fantasia is telling all in her new book "Life Is Not A Fairy Tale." She wrote it to "encourage somebody," she tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler. Click here to read an excerpt.

"I would say it's not for the people who haven't been through any of these situations. It's not for the people who haven't prayed for life," she says.

Barrino dropped out of high school and became an unwed mother at 17, something she calls a generational curse.

"When I won 'Idol,' everybody in my family said: 'You broke the curse. You did it,' " Barrino says. "My family is very, very talented. And it's so hard, even I would say for the people back in North Carolina, so much talent there, but it's so hard for people to get a break. It's so hard for the doors to open for people. And I say that to my family, like, everybody has tried and tried and tried.

"Just about all of the women in my family, we can all sit down and all say I went through the same thing. But I'm one of the ones who can say I made it out — 21-year-old young lady went through a lot of things. A lot of people judge me for my past, but you can't judge me for the things I went through that make me the woman I am today."

In the book, she writes about the time a classmate raped her when she was a teenager. She blamed herself for the attack.

She says she identifies with people who have traveled a similar path.

"So many people go through the same situations, you just don't know," she says. "People say to me, 'What made you want to come out with your story?' Well, after I won the 'Idol,' I would go to different places, people would come up and give me their story with no problem, no shame. They would pour their hearts out to me. Why? Because I've been through some of the same things."

Fantasia, who describes herself as a functional illiterate, is working on her G.E.D.

"I think people misunderstand when they heard about the part of being illiterate," she says. "I'm not dumb. I can read."

She did however have trouble understanding the contracts and record deals she signed.

"I would sign the contracts but wouldn't read over them," she says. "It's always important to know what you're signing. You could be signing your life away and don't know it."

Her hope for her 5-year-old daughter, Zion, is to be proud of her mom.

"I want her to see what her mommy has accomplished," Barrino says. "I talk about the things I messed up in this book, but I want her to say, 'Wow, look at my mommy now. If my mommy can go after it, I can go after it.' I want her to be the best. I want her to go to college."

And to her fans, she says, "There's a song right now that says 'We fall down but we get back up.' And a lot of times when we fall, people make us feel like you can't get back up. And I did it."

"Life Is Not A Fairy Tale" is published by Simon & Schuster, which is owned by the same parent company as CBS.