How many of these celebrities have “spiritual advisors?”
Lauryn Hill.
Around this time, Hill met a religious figure named Brother Anthony, a tall black man in his forties. Within three months she was going to Bible study with him two or three times a week. A friend says Brother Anthony taught Hill that "she should be whoever she wants to be, because she doesn't owe her fans anything. God didn't create us to be beholden unto people and entertain them. God holds us to be the people that we want to be."
The two became inseparable, and Hill began starting many of her sentences with the words, "Brother Anthony says . . ." Shortly after recording
Unplugged, Hill told MTV Online, "I met someone who has an understanding of the Bible like no one else I ever met in my life. I just sat at [his] feet and ingested pure Scripture for about a year." But Hill's friends found Brother Anthony bizarre. "His whole demeanor was real possessive, aggressive and crooked to me," a friend says. "You know how people are slick? He's a quick talker."
No one was certain what church he was from or what religion he belonged to. "I don't think he had a religion," a friend says. "I think he was more like, 'My interpretation of the Bible is the only interpretation of the Bible. I'm the only one on earth that knows the truth.'"
"Brother Anthony was definitely on some other shyt," Pras says. "I had a tape of [his teachings]. That shyt is ill. fukked me up. I can't really explain it. It was some weird shyt, man. It was some real cult shyt. When I heard the tape, I couldn't believe that this dude was really serious. He was sayin', 'Give up all your money.' I don't know if that meant 'Give it to me' or whatever, but on the tape he said, 'Money doesn't mean anything.'"
Many believe Brother Anthony drove a wedge between Hill and the rest of the world. "It was like she was being brain washed by this man," a friend says, "believing everything he was saying and tellin' her what to do." Another friend says, "I think he's just looking at a cash cow."
Several of Hill's friends and associates are clearly worried about her. "She's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," one says. "But not, like, two faces but, like, eight faces of that. You don't know who you're gonna get from one hour to the next. Not just one day to the next but one hour." Others recall Hill talking entirely in Bible-speak, "quoting Scripture, fanatically religious," one friend says. She sometimes answers business questions by saying things like, "We'll see what God has in store." A few tell a story in which Hill asked people to work with her on the new album, but when they asked how much they would be paid, she said, "Do it for God," meaning, do it for free, and God will reward you.
"I feel like she's lost," a friend says. "Something's not right. I just feel like she's sad and lonely and alone. I think she wants to cry out for help, but she has too much pride."
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-mystery-of-lauryn-hill-20031030
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