Derek Blanks Delivers A Silicone-Pumped Version of Brandy

"I'm runnin' on empty, y'all, and Mama won't stop calling me!"

Okay, correction: Derek Blanks is the guy that created a new "Alter-ego" for pop legend Brandy, who I guess has nothing to do since her VH1 reality show got canned.  Brandy has spent the last three albums (and more than 5 years) trying to revive the success that she achieved in early life with her hit show Moesha and her singles "The Boy Is Mine", "Have You Ever", etc.  Brandy had an almost successful run on Dancing With The Stars and continues to insist that she should have won (blame America for that, Brandy).  The singer also clearly has an obsession with going under the knife and, honestly, I am not the one that is going to say that no one should ever get plastic surgery ever (because if I had the money and the surgeon was sure he could give me a good one, I would be first in line at Dr. Chop-en-stein's Rhinoplasty Clinic), but there comes a point in which one has to stop.  This is really the issue with getting plastic surgery in the first place: people do not know when to say "Enough is enough".  Well, Brandy, I am here to tell you enough is enough.  We all see you spiraling down fast (like when you got a tattoo of the Hindu god Ganesh and tweeted about your new "Egyptian" tattoo), and some of us want to help (by writing acerbic blog posts about you, obviously).

"I'm channeling Tutankhamen here.  He's the Chinese god of beauty, right?  You know Mama took me outta school when I was ten, y'all!"

Brandy is a beautiful girl and she has an incredible voice.  Frankly, she is much more talented than the Britneys, Lady Gagas, and Katy Perrys of the world, but it seems like her time is passed.  I don't know if her plastic surgery addiction is an issue of merely body image, or if it has to do with wanting to stay competitive in L.A.  It is probably a combination of the two, but it IS interesting to analyze Brandy from the point of view of a child star, which is really what she was.  Brandy's female pimp Mom had her doing singing tours with that bluebird voice from an early age and she was landing acting gigs in her preteen years.  Brandy was a teenager on Thea and Moesha and then achieved superstar status right when she was on the cusp of womanhood (Woohoo! I found an excuse to use the word 'cusp'!).  As a child star, it is natural that Brandy would have self-esteem issues and feel a deep need for external validation (by her parents and fans).  One way to do that is to stay beautiful, especially when you have Mama Norwood calling you ever five minutes because she's standing in line at the Check Cashing place and she wants her damn money.  Having watched an episode of Brandy and Ray J: A Family Prostitution Ring, or whatever it is called, I can see that Mama Norwood still has her hands tightly on the Brandy puppet strings and she is not letting go.  And so here we are with the new Brandy by Derek Blanks: a silicone-pumped version of the Brandy Norwood that we (or maybe just me) have come to know and love.  As much as I hate Dr. Drew, maybe we need to get him to give Brandy a psych assessment, because she damn sure needs it.  (via bossip)