Some aspiring pop musicians out there would do anything to get a taste of fame. Others, surprisingly, got very close to pop stardom, only to walk away in the end. Let’s look at a few such pop singers who walked away from their potentially powerhouse careers and why they left.
Willa Ford
American pop singer Willa Ford is a pretty interesting case. In 2001, she had a really successful debut album on her hands with Willa Was Here, along with the Top 50 hit “I Wanna Be Bad”. Her follow-up singles from that year weren’t enormously successful, nor were a couple of non-album singles she released in 2003 and 2004. However, she only released one album at the height of her fame before disappearing from the spotlight to pursue other ventures. And according to her, it was because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At least, indirectly.
“A lot of people don’t realize this, but my second single was released on September 11, 2001,” said Ford. “Everything that happened that day froze; the world stood still, as it should have. My second single didn’t do well because anything that launched that day kind of got canned. I know that sounds silly, but on radio they slate things, but it really fell to the wayside. I didn’t think it was a big deal because we were making a new album anyway. The record company I was with at the time got acquired by another record company, and the president of our record company left the company. So, I ended up in no man’s land.”
Ford would go on to pursue acting, interior decorating, dancing, and modeling. In the 2020s, she returned to music.
Duffy
I wish Duffy’s story could be a happy one of choosing one’s peace over a life of fame. However, that’s not why Welsh crooner Duffy disappeared at the height of her fame as a pop star in the early 2000s. After two enormously successful albums in 2008 and 2010, Duffy disappeared from the spotlight and has not released a new album since. In 2020, Duffy wrote on her website that she had been brutally attacked and kidnapped, and the trauma of the ordeal led her to take most of the 2010s to heal. A documentary about the assault and Duffy’s inspiring recovery is set to air on Disney+.
Bridgit Mendler
Bridgit Mendler was a child actress and singer-songwriter. She is known for her roles on Disney Channel and her pop singles released in the 2010s. Her sole album, Hello My Name Is…, dropped in 2012 and was a Top 40 hit in the US. Then… she disappeared, never to release another album. That’s because she left the acting and music world behind to launch a successful tech startup, inspired to do so during the first COVID-19 lockdown. She’s definitely worthy of an entry on our list of pop singers who walked away, albeit with a fairly happy end result.
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