For practically a decade, Cindy Birdsong reigned as a member of the Supremes. By no means as well-known as Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and even Florence Ballard — the singer she changed in 1967 — she was, nonetheless, Motown royalty, whether or not onstage with the Temptations or on the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.

However Birdsong’s life modified dramatically after she left the group in 1976. Her funds fell aside and he or she finally offered off the trimmings of superstar life, took an workplace job and largely withdrew from the limelight, resurfacing solely often at Motown occasions.

A lot about Birdsong’s scenario remained largely hidden from view, shut family and friends say, due to her remoted life inside a Los Angeles condominium she shared with Rochelle Lander, a longtime buddy with whom she began a Christian ministry.

Now the depths of Birdsong’s monetary and medical struggles have grow to be public as her household has gone to court docket to request a authorized conservatorship to control her affairs. They are saying the singer, 83, is completely incapacitated after struggling a number of strokes, and needed to be rescued from Lander, an individual they are saying started exerting undue affect over Birdsong’s care and funds, isolating her from family and friends whilst her well being worsened.

“She was maintaining us within the blind,” stated Ronald Birdsong, the previous Supreme’s brother. He requested a Los Angeles Superior Court docket decide final month to nominate him as one in every of two conservators for his sister.

Lander has argued that for a few years she was the one individual keen to assist Birdsong, a rivalry the household denies.

The dispute escalated in 2021 when the Los Angeles police, on the urging of Birdsong’s household, eliminated the singer from the condominium, citing her deteriorating situation. She is now in a talented nursing facility.

The removing was put in movement by Brad Herman, a consultant of the household who has been requested to function a co-conservator by Birdsong’s relations. Herman, an leisure enterprise supervisor whose high-profile superstar purchasers have included Burt Reynolds and Pat Boone, has an influence of lawyer signed by Birdsong’s three dwelling siblings and a sister-in-law.

“It has been an open secret among the many Motown household, the tragedy of Cindy,” Herman stated in an interview.

Lander thought of however didn’t comply with an interview, and stopped responding to inquiries. Throughout Birdsong’s removing by the police, Lander defended her therapy of her buddy, challenged the household’s proper to intervene and displayed her personal energy of lawyer kind that Birdsong had signed over a decade earlier, which she stated gave her the proper to direct the singer’s medical and monetary resolution making.

“She had a whole psychological break; nobody would assist her,” Lander advised the police, based on a video of the encounter that happened within the hallway exterior Birdsong’s condominium. “No one else would do it.”

Birdsong’s struggles observe a outstanding ascent to stardom for the eldest daughter of a Campbell Soup warehouse employee from Camden, N.J. In her early 20s, after studying to sing within the church choir, Birdsong turned a doo-wop lady on the chitlin circuit, the community of venues the place Black performers discovered refuge throughout segregation. Whereas performing with Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles, Birdsong typically crossed paths with the Supremes, admiring the rising group’s glamour earlier than she finally was picked to interchange Ballard.

The swap in singers, which some later acknowledged as an inspiration for “Dreamgirls,” the fictional musical and movie, got here at a vital second for the Supremes. Their fame and affect had rocketed after No. 1 hits together with “You Preserve Me Hangin’ On” and “You Can’t Hurry Love,” however a reputation change — to Diana Ross and the Supremes — mirrored the group’s shifting dynamics. Birdsong, a fluty soprano who bore a resemblance to Ballard — the ladies even had the identical shoe and costume measurement — was skilled, poised and properly practiced. Along with her mild method and polished expertise, she was properly fitted to a frightening position: maintaining one in every of Motown’s premier acts on monitor.

“Cindy had a robust voice and charisma,” Gerald Posner, a Motown historian, stated in an interview. “She’s the one who needed to make the change look seamless — and he or she did.”

Birdsong’s profile soared as a Supreme, for good and for unhealthy. In 1969 she was kidnapped at knife level from her condominium, and solely escaped by leaping from a shifting automobile, an incident that also shook her years later, family and friends stated. The next 12 months, Ross departed for a solo profession, however Birdsong stayed on earlier than being requested to depart the group herself in 1976. Not lengthy after her departure, the singer stated in interviews that she had agreed to a “unhealthy closing deal” with Motown Information that left her financially bereft.

Dealing with divorce and deeply depressed, Birdsong stated in an interview within the Nineteen Nineties, she was suicidal, with “capsules in a single hand, tv changer within the different,” when she stumbled on the televangelist Jim Bakker preaching instantly via the TV to a celeb who had seen fame and glory however was able to take their life. That was when she turned to faith, she stated.

“God advised me,” Birdsong recalled, “what my entire life was about. He stated, ‘I gave you all these items and you bought corrupted in them.’ And I used to be ordained to serve him, even from the womb.”

Within the Eighties, Birdsong tried a comeback as a soloist, however the effort petered out. She got here to share an condominium with Lander, who had additionally been a performer and appeared in a number of TV reveals within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s. Each ladies turned more and more concerned with their religion and Birdsong stated she selected to sing non secular music, not Motown or different pop, typically working to carry Christian songs to kids and homeless individuals.

In a single incident in 2012, the document producer Steve Weaver recalled in a telephone interview, he was getting ready to document a duet that includes Birdsong and Scherrie Payne, one other former Supreme. He stated the mission would have offered Birdsong with further money, however that Lander intervened within the studio, declaring Birdsong was “not recording any secular music now.”

“Cindy went together with it,” stated Payne, who stated she witnessed Lander step in. “She was closely into her evangelism.”

Cash remained a problem regardless of efforts by some Motown alumni to assist. Payne stated she and Diana Ross gave Birdsong cash. Eric Iversen, a supervisor of former Supremes, stated he did too. Berry Gordy, the Motown founder who had employed Birdsong as a Supreme, additionally offered monetary help to her through the years, based on an announcement from his workplace.

For a lot of in that circle, Birdsong’s predicament echoed that of Ballard, who had ended up on welfare after being fired from the Supremes. She died at 32 of cardiac arrest.

For years, Birdsong’s siblings didn’t take challenge with Lander taking the lead on caring for his or her sister, they stated. However Melody Birdsong, a sister-in-law, stated that after Cindy had a second main stroke about seven years in the past, Lander turned more and more secretive in regards to the standing of Birdsong’s well being, at one level refusing to inform the household the medical facility the place she was receiving care.

“We didn’t even know the place Cindy was,” Melody Birdsong stated.

Birdsong’s solely little one, David Hewlett, and her brother Ronald stated that for years that they had problem visiting Cindy or reaching her via Lander. Hewlett stated that a number of years in the past, he and Payne went to the condominium with police to make sure they might acquire entry.

Ronald Birdsong, who lives in New Jersey, stated he as soon as took a weeklong journey to California and tried to go to his sister repeatedly with out success.

Mary Wilson, an authentic member of the Supremes who died in 2021, had mentioned her personal frustrations round not with the ability to attain Birdsong, stated Mark Bego, an in depth buddy who co-wrote a e-book in regards to the group along with her.

Relations initiated the conservatorship continuing to make sure, they stated, that Birdsong’s life and funds couldn’t once more grow to be topic to Lander’s management.

The court docket has scheduled a listening to for August.

Ronald Birdsong stated the household hopes the conservatorship course of will present a extra full accounting of his sister’s earnings and property, although neither seem like substantial. Birdsong just isn’t recognized to have retained important royalty rights, although she obtained funds totaling lower than “six figures” from one firm in 2021, based on Herman, who took over a checking account of hers that 12 months.

The Birdsong household rejected Lander’s assertion that that they had by no means been there to assist or supply monetary help. Ronald Birdsong stated he opened a joint checking account in his and his sister’s title. Charles Hewlett, Birdsong’s ex-husband, stated he had despatched checks. Each stated Lander declined their assist.

Herman stated he turned concerned in Birdsong’s affairs seven years in the past, after a longtime mutual buddy referred to as him, involved in regards to the singer’s well-being. Relations say he has been instrumental in making new care preparations for Cindy.

“With out Brad, I don’t know the place we’d be,” Melody Birdsong stated.

Relations stated their issues grew a number of years in the past when a number of relations have been allowed into the condominium and have been shocked to search out Cindy on a feeding tube. They resolved that day to search out her a brand new dwelling association.

“I used to be so devastated this final time I went to see my sister as a result of that’s not how she was the final time that I noticed her,” Cindy’s sister Terri Birdsong stated. “I used to be capable of feed her and cook dinner for her after which I present up and he or she’s on a feeding tube?”

Throughout the 2021 police intervention, Lander defended her care of Birdsong. She complained that Birdsong by no means obtained wanted cash that had been raised for her in 2013 by a performing arts group. She defined that she had been the one that organized for her buddy to maneuver into a talented nursing facility at one level, and he or she famous that the town’s Grownup Protecting Companies had been to the condominium and had not elected to take away her. (The company declined to touch upon its discovering.)

Lander advised the officers it was in poor health suggested to take Birdsong to the hospital amid the pandemic, noting that they each had “non secular objections” to the Covid vaccine.

“The household has recognized about this; they will’t are available in with out giving me due course of,” Lander stated earlier than the emergency personnel entered and wheeled Birdsong out on a gurney, based on the video of the police response.

Clayton Golliher, a pastor and director of a company referred to as Hope for Homeless Youth, stated that Lander and Birdsong had been concerned together with his program for years and that he had by no means seen something to query Lander’s care and affection for Birdsong.

“I didn’t get something however 100% optimistic about Rochelle and the best way she was delicate to Cindy,” Golliher stated.

Within the conservatorship utility, Birdsong’s situation is summarized by the nursing facility, which says she is unable to get away from bed or talk, and that she is on a feeding tube.

As Birdsong lay in mattress final 12 months, Herman introduced in a determine from her Motown days, hoping that he may assist energize her: Eddie Holland, a member of the songwriting workforce Holland-Dozier-Holland behind lots of the Supremes’ hits. In an interview, Holland recalled that he began singing songs like “Child Love” and “I Hear a Symphony,” and noticed an indication of recognition.

“For some motive she begins smiling,” Holland stated. “She grabbed my hand and form of clutched my fingers.”

Susan Beachy contributed analysis. Lauren Herstik contributed reporting.