Human star Brandy Norwood is opening up about the circumstances that caused her to lie about being married to producer Robert Smith in 2002.

That year, Brandy announced she’d secretly wed music producer Robert Smith just four months before giving birth to their daughter, Sy’rai, who is now 6. The couple even appeared as husband and wife on the MTV series Brandy: A Special Delivery, which documented their Sy’rai’s birth.

It was Smith who came clean about the marriage sham on The Wendy Williams Experience in 2003.

“I lied because of the fear of what people would think and the pressure to be a good role model,” Brandy, now 29, reveals to Us Weekly in her first interview on the topic.

“Our relationship was very real, we just weren’t legally married.”