Fantasia Barrino on Her Personal Struggles After American Idol: 'I Lost a Lot' (Exclusive)

Fantasia Barrino is opening up about tough times she experienced after stepping into the spotlight. 

Following her 2004 win of American Idol season three, Barrino, 39, faced financial difficulties and was sued by her father in 2006 over how he was portrayed in her memoir Life Is Not a Fairy Tale. She also survived an overdose on aspirin and a sleep aid in 2010.

“It wasn't easy," she tells PEOPLE in this week's issue of the years after her victory. Adds the Grammy winner, “I lost a lot. I lost everything.”

Now, The Color Purple star tells PEOPLE it's clear her early struggles stemmed from being “very, very green” when it came to navigating the music industry, Hollywood and fame. 

“You have to become a businesswoman and you link up with great business partners, but it doesn't have a lot to do with love. It took me a long time to figure that out,” she admits.

“I didn't know anything about contracts,” the mother of three continues. “I didn't know anything about checking your money and making sure every day your stuff was where it was supposed to be. I just trusted and believed everybody that came into my life.”

Barrino — just 19 when she won the television singing competition — describes herself at that time as “just a little girl from High Point, North Carolina that liked to sing. She didn't know nothing about the industry. She didn't know anything about, ‘Maybe you should look this way, dress this way, talk this way, smile for the cameras a certain way.’ ”

And, she says, “while I was singing for everybody else, I was actually singing my way through and to some things.”

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However, Barrino adds, she sees that all those low points were “necessary.”

“I'm grateful for it. … If I did not go through that, I wouldn't be the woman that I am today,” says the “I Believe” singer, who earlier this month was nominated for a Golden Globe for her leading role as Celie in The Color Purple.

The latest take on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel is a stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony-winning musical that premiered on Broadway in 2005. The Blitz Bazawule-directed film counts among its executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, the star and director, respectively, of the Oscar-nominated 1985 film.

Barrino, who played the downtrodden Celie in her Broadway debut in 2007, has earned rave reviews for the screen version, which costars Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo and fellow Golden Globe nominee Danielle Brooks.

"Celie and I have a lot in common when it comes to family situations, losing things and feeling ugly and unseen," Barrino tells PEOPLE. 

“This feels like God's promises, they're finally coming to power,” she says. “I'm a fan of the Book of Job in the Bible. Job lost everything. And so did I.”

For more on Fantasia Barrino, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, out now.