Watch out, former Idols star Kelly Fortuin is reinventing herself and planning a comeback this year.
The singer, who was a finalist of Idols Season 7 in 2011, says she’s had a rough decade but is ready to go back to her first love: music.
Now a mother of three, Kelly says there’s been heartache and pain, especially in June last year when she nearly lost her baby and her life during childbirth.
The Do You Know Where My Heart Is? hitmaker says she took a break after the music industry nearly “swallowed” her and turned her into “an ugly person”.
Kelly, who had her first baby in matric, says she went into a deep depression while on Idols, but against all odds managed to make it to the top six.
The 31-year-old is married to Maak My Famous musical director Charlton Daniels.
She says “politics” in the industry is what put her off her music career.
“I stopped making music because of politics. I have a lot of opinions and at that stage, artists were not willing to hear opinions from females,” she says.
“It made an ugly person of me, I had to become a b!tch in order to get things done and I needed to change, so Gigi’s birth experience was that change for me.
“The birth was a bad experience, they (hospital staff) hurt her so bad with the vacuum that she had blood on her brain.”
She says due to Covid-19, her husband was not allowed to be by her side.
“I also had blood clots in my lungs, I had to go back into surgery due to blood clots forming around the C-section wound.
“My baby was alone in ICU, nobody was allowed to visit her, after a week I was able to sit next to her bed to feed and hold her.
“My breaking point came when a baby next to her died, the mom was screaming. I was afraid it would happen to Gigi.”
Kelly says it’s now 10 months later and they are both doing well, so much so that she’s ready to restart her musical career.
“I have lost a lot of weight and I'm looking damn good,” she laughs.
“I decided to put myself together, do a photoshoot and regain my confidence.”
Kelly says there are no definite release dates yet, but she’s working on “new music with big names”.