Alicia Keys' troubled time leads to big success

R&B singer Alicia Keys is enjoying a successful worldwide tour, a chart-topping album and will act in an upcoming movie, but it might not have happened, she said, were it not for a near breakdown two years ago.

Keys, whose current hits include "No One," is in the middle of her "As I Am" tour. The new "As I Am" album debuted on record charts at No. 1 and has sold over 3 million copies.

In October, she will appear in feature film, "The Secret Life of Bees," starring Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the movie is co-produced by Will Smith and backed by indie powerhouse Fox Searchlight.

While Keys seems to lead a charmed life and has the sort of career that most other 26-year-olds could barely imagine, it hasn't always been so rosy.

Two years ago, the singer went through a troubled period that nearly derailed her life and career. A workaholic lifestyle and the death of a close relative from cancer pushed her "very close" to the breaking point, she admits. Source